


our place in the family of things

by greywash, yourtinseltinkerbell



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: (...also........I mean............ wait for it.........................), (Re)making things, ::SHRUG EMOJI::, Additional Warnings Apply, All Quentin wants for Christmas is a little light sexual domination, Anal Sex, Art, Artist-Author Collaboration, Chicago, Clocks and Clockwork, Collaboration, Complicated relationships to religion(s), Curtainfic only nastier, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Domesticity, Eliot Waugh's Canonically Huge Dick, Eliot Waugh's full back catalog of all 4978 volumes of Family Issues, Established Relationship, Estrangement and reconciliation, Familial Love, Familial trauma, Family, Family History, Found Family, Gen, Gender Play, Gifts, Humiliation kink, Illustrated Work, In-person reunions, Inappropriate Erections, Long-distance relationships, Love Letters, M/M, Magic, Near-Canon AU, Not precisely about Judaism but yes in places about Jewishness, Nourishment, Nurturing, Oral Sex, Partnership, Pregnancy kink (referenced), Queer Family, Queer Friendship, Queer love, Queer partnership, References to religion(s), Rimming, See Story Notes for Warnings, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Domination, Sexual Frustration, Size Kink, Snowed In, Stories and lies, TL;DR:, The family that made you, The family that raised you, The family you build with your own two hands, Vintage amateur erotica, Work, grad school, grief and mourning, minor mendings, oral fixations, sex and humor, winter holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 08:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 208,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourtinseltinkerbell/pseuds/yourtinseltinkerbell
Summary: Not even being a magician can rescue Eliot's Solsti-yule-mas, this year. After graduation, he'd leapt at the chance to apprentice with a world-famous magical architect, even if her office was in the Midwest; but now, with a major deadline looming, he can't take any time off for the holidays; and an approaching blizzard looks like it's about to ground his best friend at LaGuardia, two days before Christmas. The only bright spot? Eliot's boyfriend just beat the storm—and he brought Eliot averycool present.Then their holiday plans take a sideways turn when—not even 24 hours into Quentin's visit—Eliot's mother shows up at their front door.Eliot's perfectly happy to see his mom—seriously, he really is, honestly—but their relationship has always been complicated, and the better part of a decade of radio silence hasn't exactly laid the groundwork for easy cohabitation in a studio apartment during the most stressful time of the year. As the storm hits, suffocating Chicago just when Eliot most needs an escape, it starts to seem like the only thing that can guide him through it may be a 100-year-old clock, made by a long-dead Coldwater, that just might turn out to be a little bit magic.
Relationships: Eliot Waugh and his mother, Margo Hanson and Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson/Eliot Waugh (minor; implied)
Comments: 87
Kudos: 218
Collections: Magicians Hallmark Holiday Extravaganza





	1. union.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on _The Holiday Calendar_—with, shall we say, a twist. Title lightly adapted from Mary Oliver, "[Wild Geese](https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/24/mary-oliver-reads-wild-geese/)."
> 
> **Notes from the Artist**: **greywash**—thank you for letting me be a part of this process from the beginning, and giving me so many peeks behind the curtain (I still can’t quite shake the feeling that I’ve been getting private fic updates from my favorite author for five months). Thank you, also and most of all, for writing such a kind and inspiring story that was so easy to create things for.
> 
> **Notes from the Author**: I have a hard time knowing how best to set expectations for this story, when it comes to the challenge-wide goal of keeping things happy. This story _is_ happy, but it's also centrally concerned with a question that can be both painful to ask and painful to answer: namely, "How do I define my family, when defining it as 'the people who raised me and are biologically related to me' is impossible?" That's not an easy question, and the reasons why people ask it can be pretty dark. That darkness isn't the _point_, in this story, but it is very present: i.e., there are a number of things in this story—often though not always memories—that are painful for the characters, and that may likewise be painful or triggering for readers. So. Yes, this is a happy story with a happy ending; **but it does merit warnings**. 
> 
> For this particular challenge, I'm going outside my usual [warning policy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/profile#warnings)—under which I would just warn for **disturbing content**, FWIW—and putting a list of specific warnings in [the Ch. 10 end notes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899113/chapters/52269379#chapter_11_endnotes), for anyone who might find them useful. That said: [I continue to think that lists of specific warnings tend to be a pretty crap way of adequately preparing people for what they're about to encounter in fiction](https://greywash.tumblr.com/post/115905019187/gins-you-should-probably-tell-me-not-to-write-a), but I do also, as always, [answer warning-related questions by email](mailto:greywash@gmail.com), if it would be a help.
> 
> Okay. That's the heavy stuff out of the way! This part's more fun: many thanks to the MHHE mods for coming up with this challenge, and all their help/cat-herding/patience/support, as well as that direly necessary beta-completion extension. I also cannot tell any of you how much I have enjoyed working with **yourtinseltinkerbell**, and constructing this story together; her art fed the text more than I can possibly express, and has been hugely inspirational through many, many very _very_ stressful frantic-writing days and weeks over the past five months. yourtinseltinkerbell—thanks for being so patient with my totally nonlinear writing/editing process (especially in there towards the end); and also for making me cry a lot about Eliot Waugh. I also need to give a huge shout out to **hetrez** for a very, very much appreciated sensitivity readthough; I know I've mentioned this before, but just for posterity: my family is (part) Jewish but non-practicing, and I hugely appreciate hetrez's help and feedback with my characters who are (or at one point were) practicing Jews.
> 
> And. At the last:
> 
> No part of this story would exist without **breathedout**, who has been with me from the movie watch-through, to the car ride where I was first clumsily piecing together this premise as a mechanism to adapt it, all the way through a very long, very stressful summer and fall during which I was going bananas trying to juggle drafting this alongside life imitating art _way_ more than any of us wanted it to; and who then, in the end, beta'ed it full-speed without a handbrake as I finished continuity edits one chapter at a time while we careened through the last week (+ [/o\\]) of the challenge: babe, I love you to pieces; thank you for being my best answer to all of these questions and more; and if I ever again sign up for a six-month challenge and say "Well, it's not like I'm going to write a _novel_," you have my official permission to _slap me upside the head_.

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[What's the noun worth, anyway?](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/banner)

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["It's for you, anyway," Quentin says, and then sips his coffee.  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's for you." Quentin nods at the trunk. "Solsti-yule-mas surprise."](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/big_gifset)

### 1\. union.

#### Saturday, December 23, 2017

"So," Margo says. "On a scale from one to ten, how stressed out are you right now?"

Eliot tips his head back against the pillar. "Oh, you know. Forty-seven. Ish." 

"Jesus," she mutters.

"Fuck off, you know what it's been like." He can hear her crunching on something: he shifts, a little. With his rush to get everything cleaned up, he'd overslept, so he didn't have time to eat breakfast, and now it's nearly noon.

"Are we talking about your shitty job or your epic blue balls?"

"My job is not shitty," Eliot says, knee-jerk, before he actually has a second to think about it; a thousand miles away, Margo cackles madly. "Oh my God I hate you," he sighs; but he can feel his mouth twitching up anyway. His shoulders inching down. He tips his head back, and takes a breath. Lets it out: ribs loosening. "Come on, Bambi, you know _you_'d put up with a lot more than a few weeks of long days to work with Lu Ximénez—or, well, not Lu, not for you, but—"

"No, no, I know what you mean." She pauses, then makes a slow, thoughtful noise. "I don't know, _would_ I? I'm not—you know, _Alice_, she hit her knees so fast when she got that offer _I_ practically came."

"That _was_ kind of embarrassing," Eliot agrees, while she pops another—whatever into her mouth, crunching away. Fuck, he's hungry: he closes his eyes. "I just—I don't know," he admits. Shoulders prickling; sore. "He's never come to visit, and now there's this whole, like. Storm-blizzard thing, it's not exactly. Going to show Chicago off to advantage."

"Yeah, so?" she asks. "Every time I meet him for a drink he's basically doodling 'Mrs. Eliot Waugh' on those pretentious little notebooks you keep sending him for his thesis, so like. Pretty sure he's not flying out because he's desperate to take pictures of the Bean."

He swallows. He should—laugh that one off, probably. "Yeah?" he asks, instead. 

"_Yes_," Margo says, exasperated. "So chill the fuck out and get your shit together, seriously. This is embarrassing. You're fine."

"Right. Got it. To-do for Saturday: chill the fuck out, stop being embarrassing, introduce the love of my life to the innermost asshole of the frozen north." Eliot squints into the milling crowd past security, like that'll make Quentin turn up faster. After a second, he asks, "Pretzels?" 

Margo hums. "Pringles."

He nods. "Ranch?"

"Ew, no? Salt and vinegar." She crunches another: more loudly, now that she knows he's listening: he can tell. Eliot closes his eyes. Margo is explaining, "Fen—Her Majesty the King, excuse me, I would get extremely fired, if the liaison office'd heard that so, keep it to yourself, Waugh—but she has this thing for Earth snack foods, and Gregor tipped me off before I went over for my first assignment, which was actually probably the single most useful piece of info any of those fucking pencil pushers actually gave me. So I spent last week sampling Pringles flavors with the ruler of an alien country as a 'goodwill gesture,' which basically corresponds to, 'trying to convince her to unthrottle Earth's wellspring access by 15% so we can end rationing,' but whatever. I'm not exactly precious about the truth, you know?"

"At this stage of our friendship, I'd be very disappointed to discover you were," Eliot agrees.

"Yeah, so—." Margo makes a low, impatient noise. "Whatever. My extensive research has proven: Red Vines suck, now; _everyone_ likes Thin Mints better when they're frozen; and salt and vinegar is the one true Pringles flavor." She crunches another, aggressively; and Eliot wrinkles his nose. He can practically smell them, when she does that: prickling against the back of his tongue, the inside of his nose.

"Quentin is rubbing off on you," he says.

"What, like right now? _Rude_."

Eliot shakes his head, even though she can't see—any of it. Not how he's grinning. "'The one true Pringles flavor'? Have you been watching _Lord of the Rings_ with him again?"

She pauses. "Come on, you know I'd never blaspheme _The Lord of the Rings_," she says, finally; and Eliot—

—flinches, then clears his throat.

"When's your flight again?"

"Ugh. Four in the afternoon, tomorrow." He can hear her moving around. "On very nearly the busiest travel day of the year—Jesus, the shit I do for you. And that's _if_ it's not cancelled, which—did you see that the NWS has basically invented a new categorization, for this storm system?"

He did. "Yeah, I saw. Can't you come earlier? It's already snowing, and it's not even really supposed to really hit until midnight. Or—take the portals, maybe?"

She groans, a little. "I already checked, every airline's, like, triple-booked, and the portals are right out—no _way_ can I afford the surge pricing. _And_ I already used up my December credit allowances going to and from Fillory for work. There's a reason Quentin's taking United."

He nods. Even though—. "Penny?" he tries.

"In Loria," she sighs, "open source bullshit"; and Eliot closes his eyes.

"You like her, though?" he asks, after a second, feeling—dumb. Useless.

"Who?" 

He inches his spine up the pillar. "Her Majesty," he says, "or whatever."

"_Fen_?" Margo sounds surprised. "I mean—we don't exactly have a 'liking' kind of relationship, but—yeah, sure, why not?" She pauses, then adds, "I mean—yes, half the time when I'm in Fillory she acts more like we're having a slumber party than that she's, like, this hugely powerful and important alien ruler, or whatever, but—that's just because she's. Really good at pretending to be a hot girl who likes Pringles and is exactly as dippy as she looks, so. You know." Crunch, crunch, crunch. "She's fine," Margo says, mouth full, "whatever"; and then pauses. "I know where I stand with her," she adds, in her normal voice: no more Pringles, presumably. "We have some shit in common."

"Yeah," he says. "Can't think what, though."

"Fuck off," she says, laughing.

"Uh—hey," Eliot says, straightening up because—it was just through the crowd for a second, but he'd know that face _anywhere_. "So, not to hang up on you or whatever, but I think I see—"

"Ah, yeah, no," she says. "_Please_ hang up on me."

"Just for that, I'm making you listen to us make out for like an hour, tomorrow," he tells her, and then hangs up on her laughing at him, as per usual, just as Quentin finally stumbles out through security, with his dumb flippy bangs and his big brown eyes, looking sort of mauled even _before_ he gets within arm's reach and Eliot yanks him in so fast that Quentin's nose bumps into his collarbone, a little harder than either of them really wants it to.

"Ow," Quentin says: muffled; and—

"Jesus, sorry, baby": heart pounding, Eliot tips Quentin's chin up. Both hands. And—yes, that's him, isn't it: just like he looks over Skype except for _here_ and warm and solid and pink and smiling, dimpling up at Eliot like—like he was worth it, or something: flying coach from LaGuardia to O'Hare, two days before Christmas. "Hey—hi, you," Eliot tries, but Quentin's already pressing back up to kiss him, his arms squeezing tight-tight-tight around Eliot's ribs; and Eliot feels like—he can breathe all the way in, finally, for the first time since he last got his arms around him: the morning after that terrible fucking party Margo had dragged them to at Whitespire back in August, when they were both so hungover from quince wine that Quentin had thrown up twice on their way back to the portal, and a marmoset had given them _incredibly_ confusing directions.

In the airport, Quentin _oof_s, stumbling against him, and Eliot wouldn't exactly _protest_, normally, except that when he lifts his chin up it's because some jackoff in a power suit is muscling through the crowd and just elbowed Quentin. Which—

"Okay, should we maybe—"

"Relocate?" Quentin asks, squinting up at him; and Eliot says, "Yep, do you—is that your _suitcase_?": boggling at the beat-up black footlocker Quentin's apparently taken on board as a carry-on. 

"Uh—not exactly?" Quentin looks over his shoulder. "And—yeah, I checked my duffel, I already—" He waves a hand. "Jedi-mind-tricked like three TSA guys and a flight attendant to convince them this was—you know, a regular bag, so—"

"Gotcha": so Eliot grabs Quentin's hand, towing them to the side out of traffic, and then down to baggage claim.

It's not exactly less crowded, in baggage claim, but there _is_ a Starbucks, and Quentin's flight doesn't even have a carousel assigned yet, so Eliot gets them two coffees and a sandwich to share: he doesn't even care how awful the sandwich is, because the second Eliot sets the coffees on the footlocker, Quentin just gives him a Look™; and then opens his mouth. There have been, just speaking factually, experiences in Eliot's life that were _way_ more erotic than feeding Quentin alternate bites of a shitty holiday-dinner-in-a-sandwich from a Starbucks in a psychotically crowded airport baggage claim, but—he just can't remember them right now, that's all. The last bite, Quentin licks off Eliot's fingers. 

"We've still got a like half-hour train ride," Eliot says plaintively; and Quentin tilts his head, thoughtful.

"We could get a Lyft?"

"That would _not be faster_—Jesus, you're a dick," Eliot sighs, while Quentin presses his face down against Eliot's shoulder, giggling. "Okay, (a), I hate you, and (b)—isn't that your flight?"

"Oh—shit," Quentin says, "yes," and then falls all over himself trying to figure out how to juggle his coffee and the handle on his trunk: Eliot rests a hand against Quentin's sternum, light, and Quentin looks up at him.

"Don't worry, I'll carry your ridiculous luggage for you," Eliot says. "You take the coffees."

"Um—'ridiculous,' really? This from the guy who owns a complete matched set of vintage Louis Vuitton—"

"That," Eliot says, "was a birthday present, from Margo, because the lining matched that vest, so—will you just let me carry your trunk, dumbass?"

"Oh, you sweet talker, you," Quentin says, totally flat, as Eliot grabs the handle; and then Quentin flicks his wrist; and the trunk goes from _awkward, yet manageable_ to _about one thousand fucking pounds, Jesus fuck_: Eliot glares at him; and Quentin just raises his eyebrows: ugh, Eliot sometimes wishes he loved his stupid face like, even one tiny bit marginally less.

"Just for that I'm not making you pancakes in the morning," Eliot mutters, but it's a hollow threat and Quentin knows it: all his dimples coming out again while Eliot re-enchants the trunk under the guise of checking his phone. 

"It's for you, anyway," Quentin says, and then sips his coffee.

"What?"

"It's for you." Quentin nods at the trunk. "Solsti-yule-mas surprise."

"I—," Eliot says, blinking; but then Quentin says, "Oh, that's my duffel": nodding at the first batch of bags circling on the carousel. Quentin tosses back the last of his coffee, then asks, "Are you done?": holding out a hand.

"Um—sure," Eliot says, and tips the last of his back, too, so Quentin can throw both cups out on his way. 

It's not far. Eliot can see him the whole time, but Quentin's still away long enough for Eliot's skin to start feeling—itchy again, and ill-fitting, and cold, before finally Quentin sidles back over to Eliot with his bag slung across his back: a whole forty-five seconds later. 

"All good?" Eliot asks. Tucking that little flip of hair back: he doesn't miss Quentin's terrible greasy anxiety hair, like, at all, except—except for the way his brain is trailing somewhere behind the rest of him, still missing all of Quentin, just until Quentin dimples up at him, warm and sweet and—here, _now_, _here_; saying, "All good," and then, "take me home?"; as he slips his hand into Eliot's.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

"Sooo": Eliot draws it out as long as he can, to cover how the lock sticks before he can finally bump it open. "Bienvenue chez n—shit, hold on, I definitely _didn't_ leave _that_ out": dropping his keys on their hook and Quentin's trunk down in the hall so he can dart into the bathroom and grab Sir Ian off the edge of the bathtub. "Stay right there," he tells Quentin, "nothing to see here, this is—but the briefest of delays, in your grand tour," and then he kisses Quentin's lovely giggling mouth as quickly as he can stand, before darting back to shove Sir Ian back into his nightstand. To tug the duvet straight, and check his hair in the mirror.

"Okay," he says, coming back out into the hallway: Quentin's still standing in the open doorway in his coat, beaming, cheeks pink—God, did he get _prettier_? Ugh—Eliot coaxes him all the way in and shuts the door. "If I might take your coat, darling?": it makes Quentin scrunch his nose up, but he still arches up into Eliot's hands, doesn't he, while Eliot's helping him out of it. Eliot scratches him behind the ears, and Quentin shivers, tipping his face up, which—

"No kissing on the tour," Eliot tells him, and then—kisses him. Just a little. 

"Mm." Quentin blinks up at him, smiling and sleepy. "I like your definition of 'no kissing.'"

"Well, technically the tour hasn't really started yet," Eliot explains, and Quentin starts laughing, so Eliot presses him up against the back of the door and—

Finally Eliot manages to— "Okay," he says, thick. Pressing their foreheads together: "so, like—I actually did plan out this whole tour, I practiced the narration and everything"; and Quentin groans.

"How big is your apartment?" he asks, and—_squirms_; and Eliot—with some difficulty—lets go of Quentin's ass. "No, wait," Quentin says, arching up, and—

"_Behave_," Eliot says, which is—_dangerous_, he realizes, when Quentin's eyes go dark, lips parting: Eliot swallows. "So—uh, time out on _that_ one, I think, until—uh." He laughs, a little, and then pulls Quentin's hand up. Kisses his knuckles, as Quentin's expression goes soft. 

It takes a sustained exercise of willpower, but Eliot does manage to let go long enough to take Quentin's coat over to the empty half of the left-hand closet, and hang it up. "Shoes wet?" he asks.

Quentin scrunches his nose up. "Yeah, kind of," he admits, and then bends forward to start prying them off.

"Ah," Eliot stops him with a hand to his shoulder, "_except_," and then pulls out his new footstool with a flourish. "Specifically designed," Eliot says, "so that no one has to bend over and probably fall on their face while untying their shoelaces."

Quentin gives him a look that Eliot can't totally parse, then sits down to wrestle with his shoelaces. "That was like _one time_," Quentin says, very earnestly; which is—a total lie, so Eliot kneels down to help him get them unknotted, because who wears eight-year-old Converse to fly to Chicago at the start of a forecast record-breaking Midwest snowstorm? Quentin Coldwater, that's who.

"Please tell me you brought boots," Eliot asks him; and Quentin's mouth twitches.

"Yes, Dad," he says; and Eliot rolls his eyes and snaps one of Quentin's wet socks up at his face.

"You're a hazard," he says, while Quentin is grinning at him: dimples, dimples, dimples, as far as the eye can see. Eliot kisses him once, quick, and then pushes up to pull Quentin up to his feet. "Okay," Eliot says. "Tour. No kissing."

"Got it." Quentin nods. "Tour. Absolutely no kissing whatsoever": and Eliot winds their hands together.

"This palatial experience," Eliot says, "is my closet."

"Oh, your _closet_?" Quentin nods, squeezing. "It _is_ surprisingly spacious."

"Well, it's definitely the nicest one _I've_ ever been in," Eliot tells him; and Quentin starts giggling, pressing his cheek to Eliot's shoulder. "You will—pay attention, please—you will note that ahead of you is the bathroom—"

"Previous home of Sir Ian," Quentin says, nodding.

"Well, pied-à-terre, maybe," Eliot concedes, "mostly he stays in my nightstand, but—yes, he, uh. Visits frequently, and—here, in the _closet_, you will note that there is hanger space to the left of you, and hanger space to the right of you, and the one to the left of you—"

"I will note that that side," Quentin says, nodding, "is suspiciously empty. I wonder why that might be."

"Well, no, it's not actually empty," Eliot says, and then pulls out his underwear drawer, and then the one with his ties and scarves. "The thing is," he explains, "there's not actually room to have furniture in most of this apartment, and I totally can't afford a space-alteration license, so—hopefully you didn't bring _too_ many jeans and hoodies with you? Margo will need some room, too." 

"El, mostly my approach to putting away my jeans and hoodies is to, yeah, stuff them in my closet, but, like, on the floor," Quentin says; and Eliot touches his cheek.

"I know, baby," he says, very tenderly. "And if you do that while you're visiting you won't get _any_ spankings _at all_": and Quentin starts giggling again, eeling around to lean up— "Ah," Eliot puts his hand over his mouth. "Remember, no kissing."

"On the tour," Quentin says, a little muffled. 

"On the tour," Eliot agrees, and then tugs Quentin into the bathroom. Closes the door. "Regard the bathroom," Eliot says.

They regard the bathroom. It's a bathroom. It's not very big—tiny, honestly, with both of them trying to stand in the awkward wedge of space between sink and toilet and bathtub, but—Eliot likes it. Everything's just a touch uncomfortably low for him, like they'd designed it for hobbit people. Or, you know. Quentin.

"Note what the designer has termed the 'mojito-themed' color scheme," Eliot says; and Quentin nods.

"I like it," Quentin says, squeezing his hand. "It's green."

"Oh my God, your response is, '_it's green_'?": but Quentin is already pressing his face against Eliot's shoulder, giggling helplessly. "Ugh, why did I even waste this on you?" Eliot asks, but he can't stop smiling.

"I'm sorry," Quentin says. A little out of breath. "You know I can't help teasing you, it feels like it's been forever since I've got to—no, El, honestly, you know it's gorgeous."

"It _is_ gorgeous," Eliot agrees. "_Thank_ you." Putting an arm around him: Eliot hadn't been able to really do all that much in here, honestly, but he'd painted the walls a very delicate sort of cucumber-mint, to make all the white porcelain and tile stand out; and installed a tiny corner shelf—also painted: cucumber, mint—to hold a very, very small pencil sketch: the branches that'd forever dangled across Margo's window at the Cottage, backlit by sunlight and lush with green leaves.

"Classy," Quentin adds, and Eliot can see it coming even before Q turns his face up to add, "You wouldn't want to conduct your tawdry affair with Sir Ian in anything less than, uh—the most elegant of surrounds."

"While this is _often_ where I conduct my tawdry affair with Sir Ian," Eliot says, "I do want to assure you that I'm thinking about you while we do it."

"It's okay that that's a lie," Quentin says, leaning his cheek against Eliot's arm, looking up at him. Smiling, smiling.

"Well," Eliot concedes, "okay—usually I'm thinking about _both_ of you."

"Oh, I would be too," Quentin agrees, eyes crinkling; and then—adorably—he blushes, like last Tuesday Eliot didn't have him deep-throating half his hand on Skype, just to get himself through finals.

"Pause in the tour?" Eliot asks; and Quentin says, "Yes, please"; so Eliot kisses him, once—okay, four times—and then tugs him back out into the hall.

"So this," Eliot says, leading him around into the quote-unquote _living/sleeping area_: "This is what is meant by a 'spacious junior one-bedroom.' In case you were wondering."

"Hm." Quentin eyes the two rice-paper panels that Eliot's suspended in between the bed and the sofa, in lieu of an actual wall. "Did the ad actually say 'spacious'?"

"Well, no," Eliot concedes. "But it was strongly implied": and Quentin tugs him through the little not-quite-doorway between the screens and the hallway wall.

"So this is the bedroom?" Quentin asks; and then goes over and thunks back onto the bed, his hand slipping out of Eliot's hand.

Eliot leans against the corner of the wall, watching Quentin sprawl out: his bare toes curling, thighs wide. "Nice," Quentin says. "Good mattress." He props himself up on his elbows, squinting over at him. "Is there a tour of this bit?" Quentin asks; then says, "Oh! You're right, I _do_ like the mirror": looking over to the corner, at—at himself, reflected: Eliot shifts, a little. Watching Quentin watch Quentin.

Eliot pushes off and comes over. "Why d'you want a tour of the bed, hm?" He rests a hand on Quentin's hair, and Quentin turns his face up, nuzzling. Eliot is trying, and failing, not to watch the luminous pale moon of Quentin's face: the light of their shadowy, snow-veiled reflections: "The bed's not that interesting," Eliot says, and Quentin squints one eye open, regarding him.

Eliot can't stop touching his face. It's—it's just. His favorite face, basically, and it looks—different, in person: Quentin _has_ lost weight, Eliot can tell, no matter what Quentin's been claiming since October.

"It's really not on the tour?" Quentin asks.

"It's really not on the tour," Eliot admits, "which may have been an oversight": and then kneels up behind him, slotting his arms around Quentin's ribs, so Quentin can lean back into Eliot's chest. Folding his hand over Eliot's hand over the low, steady thud of Quentin's heart. 

Quentin's eyes are closed. Dark half-moons underneath. 

"I really do want to finish the tour," Eliot says. "But—I could always improvise something, for—the bed?" Quiet; and Quentin's mouth curls up.

"Mm, no, it's okay." Quentin arches up. Kisses him: odd and electric, upside down. "I can hold all my bed-related questions until the end."

"Ah." Eliot brushes their mouths together again. "Out of curiosity... are your bed-related questions by any chance 'a nap'?"; and Quentin laughs.

"Well, they're not _just_ a nap," he says, and then squints one eye open. "Sorry."

"No, no, I remember," Eliot says, quiet. When _he_'d been halfway through his thesis, he'd celebrated the end of his last semester of coursework by donning some lacy black knickers and a set of Starfleet-themed pasties that he'd bribed Gretchen extensively to evaluate for canonical plausibility; laid himself out alluringly in Quentin's bed while Quentin was still taking his last final; and then accidentally passed out for thirty-six hours. "And—I will be delighted to accept _all_ of your questions at the end of the tour," Eliot says, stroking Quentin's hair back, "whether or not they're a nap."

Quentin huffs, almost-laughing, as he winds their fingers together. "Okay." He takes a breath. "Okay," he repeats; and then levers himself up the rest of the way to sitting, and then kicks his bare feet off the bed. "Show me everything."

"Yes, but first—" Eliot kisses him; and Quentin starts giggling again.

"You're not following the rules," Quentin reminds him, sliding an arm around him; and Eliot reminds him, "Honey, I _make_ the rules," and then pulls back just enough to catch Quentin's hand and tug him out of the sleeping alcove, past his hanging screens, while Quentin stumbles into him, laughing. 

Eliot is feeling, strangely enough, a shocking impulse to accelerate the tour. "This is my desk," he says, with a little wave, "which I had _hoped_ would be more decorative than it has actually turned out to be, but—if you need pens, I have pens. Please, help yourself to my pens. Post-Its? I have Post-Its." He pulls the drawer out. "They're pink."

Quentin nods. "Paper clips?"

"You may liberate as many of my paper clips as your heart desires—I don't actually have any paper clips," Eliot admits. "But I can steal some from work, if—"

"I'm sure I can make do with just stealing your Post-Its," Quentin assures him; and then reaches out to touch the spine on Eliot's copy of _Constructed Realities: A Transplanar Approach to Architecture and Design_. "Work?" he asks, looking up.

"Yeah, but you'd like the pictures. Just don't make fun of my spelling in my notes." 

"That's Alice," Quentin reminds him; and Eliot guides him into the kitchen before Quentin can work himself up about not getting why Eliot is friends with her in the first place, like _Quentin_ wouldn't fight a bear for her—or, well, at the very least speak to it very sternly.

"This," Eliot says, by way of distraction, "is the kitchen—it's not huge or anything, but—look, there's an actual stove! And to my knowledge, no one has thrown up in the sink. If they did, it was cleaned up before I moved in."

"Ooh, fancy," Quentin says, then asks, "Coffee?"

"One-track mind," Eliot tells him; and Quentin holds up two fingers. "Yes, fine," Eliot concedes. "Two-track mind. Coffee maker is here, cups up above, coffee's in _this_ cupboard because I had it on the second shelf and I didn't think you could reach—"

"I really love how you can make me think, 'aw, that's so sweet,' and also 'shut up, asshole, I am not that short,' like, without even a comma in between—oh," Quentin says, as Eliot opens the cupboard, eyebrows lifting: "okay, fine, you're right, I couldn't reach."

"I take care of you," Eliot reminds him: _dimples_.

"It's true," Quentin says. "You take very good care of me."

They're getting—perilously close to kissing territory again, so Eliot steps sideways, and waves a hand at the kitchen door: "Back-patio-slash-fire-escape—it's shared with 2A, but don't worry, they smoke too, so—"

Quentin shrugs up a shoulder, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I—I quit, actually," he admits. "Like—for real, this time, I think"; and Eliot straightens.

"Oh," he says, and thinks. Heart fluttering, as his stomach sinks: they'd tried to quit together, twice, while Ted was sick, but neither time had exactly taken. "Uh—Q, that's so great, I'm so proud of you, I—will happily join you after this project's out, but if I try to quit right now I think I'm going to—murder someone, so—"

"No, no." Quentin waves a hand. "I get it, it was more—I hit a level of nicotine consumption that was clearly making my anxiety worse, not better, and Julia sort of staged an intervention."

"Oh, honey," Eliot says: tender, half-laughing. "_Julia_ staged an intervention?": because that girl smokes like a chimney. He holds out his arms, so that Quentin shuffles in against him, pressing his face in against Eliot's throat; and Eliot rests his hand on the back of Q's neck. "Is it helping?" Eliot asks.

"Well—now, maybe." Quentin sighs. "It was—fucking terrible, though, I thought—ugh, speaking of murder." He sighs again. "Whatever, she told on me to Caleb's office, because she's the worst, and then I got the like—twinned sad eyes from him and Dr. London at like six appointments in a row, and also a prescription for varenicline, and now I don't smoke anymore, so."

Jazz hands.

Eliot nods. Throat tight. "I'm really proud of you," he says. 

Other than the jazz hands: it's true; but it comes out sounding more like a question than Eliot'd really wanted it to. Quentin scrunches up his face, a little. "You're going to miss your smoking buddy, aren't you," he says.

"Jesus, not enough for you to start up again." Eliot swallows. "Will it bother you, if I _am_ still smoking?"

Quentin shrugs. "I mean—yeah, I miss it, I miss—smoking with people, but also—I do actually get it, El, I know how hard you've been working, I'm not here to make your winter suck more, I can restrain myself from, like, falling on your cigarettes in an orgiastic fury, don't worry." He scrubs at his face. "I'll probably keep taking really long, deep breaths off your coat, though," he admits.

"And here I thought you just liked the way I smelled," Eliot says.

"Well." Quentin's smiling, again. "That too."

Eliot squeezes the back of his neck. Tugs at his hair, gentle: Quentin hums, eyes slipping shut.

"Did you notice the art?" Eliot asks; and Quentin blinks up at him. Eliot sighs. "No, why'm I asking, of course you didn't—come here": and then grabs him by his shoulders and steers him over to the sofa, sitting him down so he's positioned just-right to see the series of colored-pencil sketches Eliot had been doing, all fall. He'd been—_homesick_: the only word for it, really. He'd just—been homesick, in ways he had for some reason managed to move a thousand miles away without anticipating himself becoming, so—so he'd started with the Cottage. Then, the quad. The library table where Margo had more or less beat him into passing metamagical geometry; the reading nook, from the inside. And then—then he'd still had—too much space, on his walls, so he'd added Ted's house, from a memory that'd felt clearer than it should've been. That atrocious dive that Julia and Quentin always wanted to go to whenever they were in the City. Whitespire, dreamy and impressionistic through the lens of his hangover. And then—then the Chalk, mostly going off Google Images of the South Downs; and Lower Tadfield, as best he could picture it; and then, finally, and the largest: the stacks of the library of the Unseen University, just the way that Quentin had always painted it behind Eliot's eyelids: ever since that very first time Eliot had found him hiding in the nook in the Cottage, and had had just enough guts to ask Quentin if he'd read to him. None of the colors in any of them are even remotely accurate, but Eliot knows it: instead of aiming for accuracy he'd used the palette of the startlingly lovely pair of canvases that he'd found slumped behind a velvet painting of Snoopy dressed like a matador when he'd gone to the Swap-O-Rama with Amahle in September. He'd hung one of the canvases over his desk, tucked along the wall, and the other just at the mouth of the hall: jammy splashes of plum and grass-green with curls of a soft, blushing rose, all echoed in the little wisps of color entwined with the grey of the rug stretching out from Quentin's feet to the edge of Eliot's desk, in the flecks of dried flower petals embedded in the paper of the screens; with the purple caught and held, at last, by the single remaining ranunculus, resting in a jar on the kitchen table. The table is a round, solid butcher-block table that'd reminded him of—well. It'd just seemed so _real_: real in the way that going home with Quentin had felt real, before Ted had died: arguing with him about the correct way to grill ribs or whether or not iced tea was supposed to start out sweet—it's not; Ted was wrong. The table was the only thing Eliot had really spent money on, when he'd first moved in (well, that and the bed): no one takes a three-year contract with Lu Ximénez for the _pay_. He'd left himself eating ramen for two months and rationing his cigarettes but it was worth it and he loves it: he loves the way it feels under his hands when he oils it, its warmth and solidity and the unfussiness of it, amid what _even he_ can admit is a fairly fussy apartment. The ranunculus, for its part, is the last of the ones he found a week ago in a florist downtown: he was already convinced they were half-magic when he bought them, and now—well. It won't last, but it's still beautiful, isn't it. Its petals only-just hanging on long enough for Quentin.

Quentin reaches up to touch the edge of the Unseen University sketch; sliding his fingertips along one apeish hand of the Librarian: climbing up the stacks, and out of the picture. Then Quentin reaches up for Eliot's waist, tugging him down onto the sofa, next to him. "This is amazing, El," he says, quiet, and then kisses Eliot's cheek. "I wish I could see things the way you can." He rests his head on Eliot's shoulder. Says, "What they could become, I mean."

Eliot turns to look down at him. Feeling—

"I missed you," Eliot says, around the lump in his throat.

"I missed you too," Quentin says, lifting his chin up; and then his expression shifts, mischievous, as he asks, "Eliot Waugh, is this a _pullout_?"

"Okay," Eliot says, "so—it _is_," and Quentin starts laughing, "which, yes, I know, I _know_ it's tacky, I told _you_ they were tacky, but—this apartment's really small, Quentin! It doesn't even have _one_ bedroom, let alone two, what're we going to do with Margo?"

"Well, ask her to give us notes, probably," Quentin says, sitting up, "but I see your point": and then slings a leg over Eliot's, climbing up into his lap. "So." He tangles his hands up in Eliot's hair: tugging, a little. "Was that the tour?"

Eliot inhales. Steady, steadying. "Almost," he says, light, as he pushes up, reluctantly tipping Quentin back onto his feet. "Come on. There's still—"

_The bookshelves_, he wants to say; but can't.

The bookshelves, he'd found on the sidewalk, down Kedzie almost to Humboldt Park, sometime back in July. They'd been a wreck: nicked and battered, coffee-rings on every shelf at an even remotely plausible cup-holding height, but they'd felt solid, and even with Eliot's ongoing efforts to forget everything he learned before the age of eighteen, he could still tell that they'd been made by a carpenter who'd known what they were doing. He'd given himself one hell of a migraine levitating all three of them home in 90° heat and 94% humidity while keeping an attention deflector up at the same time, but it'd been worth it, when—after he'd spent the next three weeks sanding and staining them with about eight separate spells streaming through the apartment at all times for ventilation so he didn't pass out from the fumes—they'd slotted perfectly into place down the length of the hall: solid oak, stained a rich, warm brown that'd made him think of—oh, whatever. Cognac, old leather-bound books, Quentin's eyes—basically, Eliot thinks, swallowing as he touches the shelf at shoulder-height: the whole thing had been kind of embarrassing.

"So," Eliot says, and then. Stops.

"These are the shelves you were working on, over the summer?" Quentin presses his hand against them, next to Eliot's, giving them a tiny shove: the shelves don't so much as wobble. "Wow, these _are_ nice. Someone just threw them out?"

"Yeah," Eliot says. "And there's, you know."

He waves a hand. There're three bookshelves, six shelves in each. Two of the shelves in each frame are adjustable height. Eliot sold back most of his Brakebills books when he graduated, keeps his work-related reference on his desk—so. They're mostly empty.

"There's some extra space," Eliot says. Clears his throat. "If—you know, if I ever. Find some more books, in my apartment."

Quentin ducks his head. Eliot's heart thuds, once; as Quentin slips his hand into Eliot's hand. 

"I think they're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot looks up at the ceiling, blinking and blinking. "Hey." Quentin tugs, and Eliot lets his body sway up against him: God he's warm. Eliot settles his arms around Quentin's shoulders. His fingers slipping into his soft, soft hair. "Did I ever thank you for clearing out space in your closet?" Quentin asks. "So I don't have to live out of a suitcase all break?"

Eliot's ribs unclench. "I think it was—strongly implied," he says. 

Quentin nods, and then pushes up onto his toes. Nuzzling: Eliot breathes him in. "Thank you," Quentin says. His mouth brushing Eliot's mouth, barely. "For making room for me."

Eliot can't speak. He nods, rubbing their faces together. He is thinking: _I am made of room, when you look at me_.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/making_room)

[Thank you, for making room for me.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/making_room)

"Tour over?" Quentin asks.

"Tour over," Eliot agrees; and then—pulls back. Claps his hands together. "I will now be taking—um, any number of audience questions—"

"In bed?" Quentin asks, smiling; and Eliot says, "Honestly, on—just about any surface you want me to, baby"; and Quentin starts laughing again: reaching out to take Eliot's hand, and tug him past the screens.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Warm.

He's so warm, and—and, oh, foot. Q. _Hair_: Eliot stretches, a little; and Quentin shifts with him, sleepy and solid and _warm_, with—with his foot tucked back in between Eliot's bare ankles: still so familiar it hurts.

"Mm." Quentin stretches, too: sliding his fingers between Eliot's, while Eliot flattens his hand over Quentin's sternum. "Time's it?"

Eliot squints an eye open. Getting dark, but barely. "Mm." He presses a yawn to the back of Quentin's shoulder. "Four, maybe?" The snow's started, though: the world outside the windows heavy with the hush. "Maybe earlier? S'hard to tell, in the snow."

"Ugh. I'd better—" Quentin—no—lets go of Eliot's hand, and then struggles up to sitting, "—get some water": reaching for—but there isn't any water, of course, so Eliot rolls onto his back so he can visualize better while levitating him a glass from the kitchen. "Thank you." Quentin takes a sip, eyeing him. Cheeks pink.

Under the duvet, Eliot rubs at Quentin's knee. "Are you still on mornings, for your meds?" he asks. Still sort of foggy. "Or—should I feed you?"

"No—still mornings, yeah." Quentin drinks the last of the water, then sets the glass down on the nightstand and wriggles back under the duvet, Eliot holding his arm up, just so Quentin can slot back in underneath. "You could feed me later, though," Quentin mumbles, burrowing his whole bare sweaty body against Eliot's; and so Eliot pets down the long silky line of his back, uninterrupted, between the nape of his neck and his ass.

"Of course I'll feed you later." Eliot kisses the tip of Quentin's nose. The corner of his mouth. "God, how can I've Skyped with you last night and still feel like I haven't talked to you in about twenty years?"

"To be fair, last night I was kind of a zombie." 

"Yeah," Eliot says, quiet. "Third year can be like that." Thumbing over his cheek. "How far along are you?"

"Mm. Two sections drafted, six to go, but at least I think I'm almost done with fieldwork?" Quentin wriggles closer: it's wonderful. Eliot hadn't even thought he could get closer, at this point. 

Eliot nods. "What's left?"

"Um—well, the site on Wappinger Creek was already frozen over by the third time I made it out there, and I couldn't even get it melted enough to get water samples," Quentin says. "But I'm done with all the sites that really require portal passes—I'm trying to save my credits for spring break."

"You going to come visit me?"

"No, I thought I'd visit my other boyfriend," Quentin says; so Eliot rolls over on top of him and licks a long wet stripe up Quentin's neck while Quentin wriggles. Squeaks.

Eliot nestles down against him. "You deserved that."

"Oh, I deserve much, much worse," Quentin says earnestly; looping his arms around Eliot's shoulders while they kiss. 

"But it works?" Eliot asks. Nuzzling him.

"Oh, it definitely works." Quentin sighs. "Ten out of ten for using minor mendings to repair cell damage, sure, but all the plants are still chock full of pollutants."

Eliot hums. Touches his cheek. "Repaired cell damage isn't nothing," he says, very gently.

"Oh, no, I know, it's just—." He waves a hand, then settles it back into Eliot's hair. "It's not permanent, you know? And even if it were it'd be a pretty unsatisfying solution."

Eliot nuzzles their faces together. "I have the strangest memory," he says. 

"Oh, no," Quentin mutters.

"Of you telling me—"

"El, that was _a completely different situation_."

"—that maybe I didn't have to wake up and save the world every day to be worth something," Eliot finishes: gentle, but relentless: he's not letting _Quentin_ slide into that one. Quentin's mouth twists; and he puts his fingers on Eliot's mouth, so Eliot licks them.

"Do you ever regret it?" Quentin asks. His voice—curving down, at the end.

"What, working for Lu instead of going with Margo? No." Eliot takes a breath. "I wish I was _closer_, but—Lu? Never. It was exactly the right advice, Quentin, in exactly the right moment. You're—really good at doing that, you know."

Quentin swallows, mouth twisting, a little. "I wish you were closer, too," he admits; and then squirms. "But, um. Do you remember Gerald Kang?"

"Uh." Eliot thinks. "Oh—right, he's one of the nerd mentors, isn't he? Monotone, bow tie?"

"Yeah," Quentin says. "He's the one who always introduces himself—'B.S. MIT, Ph. D. Harvard,'" so Eliot finishes in chorus with him, "'Brakebills Class of '89.'" Quentin is playing with the back of Eliot's hair, and not quite looking at him. "He's a biochemist," he explains. "He wants to hire me." 

"So he's a monotone bowtied nerd with excellent taste." Eliot kisses Quentin's cheek, throat aching. "Where's he based again? NYU?"

"No, that's, um. Oliver Tuhirangi, with the huge glasses, who's at NYU—they do a lot of work together, though." He shifts. "Dr. Kang's based at Northwestern," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot stills. Looking down at him.

"Northwestern?" Eliot asks. "Like—Northwestern University, ten miles from here Northwestern? That Northwestern?"

Quentin nods. Not quite meeting Eliot's eyes.

"Shit," Eliot says. "Are you going to—do you _want_ to take it?" he asks. "Because—I mean, I thought I was out here for three years saving every penny I could so I wouldn't come back to you in New York destitute, when my contract's up, but—I also want to put you in my pocket and keep you always, so—"; and Quentin smiles up at him. Looking so fucking—

"Really?" he asks: —_happy_—

"_Really_," Eliot tells him, "_desperately_," exasperated, "just like _always_—I should _smother_ you, honestly"; and Quentin starts laughing, pulling Eliot down against him. Pressing his face up against Eliot's throat.

Eliot slides his knee between Quentin's warm thighs. Pulling him up: God, _Evanston_, Jesus. They could— "You seriously want to take it?"

"It's a really interesting job working for a very nice man who likes D&D and has killer taste in bowties, oh and also, it's like a thirty minute drive away from your apartment," Quentin says. "Of _course_ I want to take it, Eliot."

Eliot kisses him. Again. Then pulls back, so he can look down at him. His lovely face. "I guess I'll just have to keep your half of the closet empty," Eliot says. Airy.

"It's really only like a quarter of the closet," Quentin reminds him, smiling. 

"Well, you have fewer clothes than me," Eliot says.

"Everyone does," Quentin agrees; and so Eliot sticks his fingers in his armpits and tickles him until he gasps, "Okay! Okay": Eliot stills; "okay, it's not true, Margo has more clothes than you—"

"_Thank_ you," Eliot says, and then ducks down to kiss him again. Quentin's still giggling.

"I traded Penny voltaic measurement help for a hand with the samples at the Black River site," Quentin says, a little later. Petting his fingers through the hair on Eliot's chest. "Because I had to wear a full-body hazmat suit and a respirator, so my equipment weighed about a hundred pounds."

"Ooh, sexy." Eliot tucks Quentin's hair behind his ear. "Did he take pictures?"

"I had this sneaking suspicion that you'd want to tease me about it basically forever, so—he did, actually." Quentin stretches, slow. Makes one of his humming, purry little noises: Eliot takes a deep, calming breath. "Want me to get my phone?"

"I don't want you to go anywhere," Eliot says, quiet; and Quentin kisses his collarbone. Eliot can feel him smiling, warm on Eliot's skin. "Later, though?" Eliot says. "Later, I want to see terrible pictures of you, _absolutely_": and Quentin bites him. Prickling, delicious: Eliot rolls them up onto their sides.

"How's the project of doom coming?" Quentin asks, and then winces. Rests his palm on Eliot's face. "Jesus, have I even asked, lately?"

"No, but—you had finals, baby. It's okay." Eliot kisses him. "It's going okay, I think? Busy, though. We've got—I don't think I really realized, how far along we needed to be in the design, before we could cast the base, but—the plans basically need to be done?" He sighs. "And—we _have_ to set the base the third week of February, like—Hal's coming back from his research fellowship, just for the casting, and even if he wasn't, and even if Maryam weren't, like, scheduling all her work in Taipei assuming that she can't book anything for _that_ week but she can fill up everything _else_ between now and 2020—"

Quentin shifts. "Maryam's the other senior partner, right?"

"Yeah," Eliot says. "She followed Lu from Willard and Rennalls, when Lu jumped ship. And Hal was their first apprentice, like—twelve years ago, or something, and he's also a total badass with power flow, apparently—I mean, Amahle says so, I don't know, he's been in New Zealand since before I started. But I _do_ know he's one of the most experienced casters we've got, and—like, I like my coworkers," Eliot says; and then admits, "Or, well. Most of them. But—for the most part, we're just really _young_, you know? Even—I mean, Amahle is on her third year, so she's technically not an apprentice anymore, but she's still _very_ junior staff. I have a really hard time imagining that Lu's going to, like, stick her on two, or something—"

"Hey, uh." Quentin laughs, a little. "Remember how I didn't take any VLSHDS courses, like, at all?"

"Oh." Eliot rubs at his face. "Christ, sorry, Q. Is this super boring?"

"Nope," Quentin says. "I like it when you're excited. I just—might need a glossary, that's all. 'Stick her on two'? Is this like—a baseball metaphor?"

"I, uh—" Eliot huffs. "I mean, that language probably—isn't _unrelated_, but—no. Not really." He shifts. Touches Quentin's throat. "Basically—all VLSHDS castings—well, any highly durable spellwork, actually—requires multiple casters, right?" Quentin nods. "So—where the 'very large scale' part comes in is that there's sort of. A really common pattern, for how to divide up the work, based on where in the casting sequence you're positioned—lines up with your position in the sigil-circle, too. And the second person who starts casting is called the second corner—or, well. Foundation." Eliot waves a hand. "Lu wants us to use the names, it drives her bonkers that Brakebills teaches us to use the numbers, instead—she keeps saying it's trying to introduce efficiency into something where efficiency just destroys it." Eliot shifts, just enough to get an arm around Quentin's warm side. "Like artisan craftsmanship," Eliot explains, "or oral sex"; and Quentin nods, dimpling. 

"Does she say that part?" he asks.

"God, no," Eliot says, and then—laughs. "Lu never talks about her personal life."

"Also," Quentin says, "it would be kind of an HR violation"; and Eliot leans in and kisses the tip of his nose.

"You're an HR violation," he murmurs, and Quentin tips his chin up.

"So," Quentin says, breathless. Somewhat later. "Foundation."

"Um—yeah." Eliot. Squints at him. "I—what was I talking about?"

"You don't think Lu's going to put Amahle on second," Quentin says; and Eliot rubs their ankles together, feeling—very, very fond.

"On two," he corrects. "Or at foundation": and Quentin nods. "But—yeah," Eliot says. "I mean, she's probably not going to use the junior staff at all, I'm about 99% sure all three of us will just end up observing, but—foundation is super, super important, and super, super _hard_? Like—foundation's going to be—I don't know, Maryam, maybe, if Lu doesn't take it herself. And—all Lu's really got to work with is pretty much—her, Maryam, Georgie, Raj, Eunice—who's still out, she's coming back, like, ten days before we're scheduled to cast, or something—and, like, Amahle, in an emergency, _maybe_, because this isn't the kind of thing where you put an apprentice—like. Anywhere." He laughs. "So we _have_ to cast the third week of February, because otherwise Lu just won't have enough real staff to actually do the spell. But we're nowhere near ready, yet—Lu's spending about ten hours a day on how we're actually reconciling every conflicting requirement we get from the Library and Whitespire; and we need to be down to, like. What the windows are going to look like in the finished building, before we can actually cast."

Quentin nods. "Well," he says, "that doesn't sound stressful _at all_."

"Nope," Eliot agrees, and snuggles in.

Kissing him, just. Just for a while.

Quentin's hand drifts down his side. Settles on Eliot's hip. "I don't actually understand what you do all day," Quentin admits, nuzzling their faces together. "I mean—I keep thinking that your job description is basically to make beautiful things? But. I don't actually know _how_"; and Eliot kisses his forehead.

"I like that, honestly," Eliot says. "That's a lot better than—there's a definition of, I shit you not, 'aetherial architecture,' in one of my reference manuals, but it makes me want to shove the author down a flight of stairs, I swear, it's like—something about the mellifluous melding of magic and matter, or whatever?": Quentin starts cackling. "I know, right? And, as for how—a lot of wasted scratch paper, mostly, since—for some reason we keep losing all our erasers." He shifts down, a little, so he can get a better grip on Quentin's ass: he's missed that, too. "But like—the actual _job_'s not really all that complicated," Eliot admits. "We're just—working out the floorplan for a Fillorian branch library. Whoop de doo."

"Yeah," Quentin says, "but they didn't hire—Perkins Eastman, or whatever, did they."

"Well, no." Eliot takes a breath. "But—like, not because Perkins Eastman aren't good, or whatever—"

"But because," Quentin says, "when you get magic all over the inside of a normal building, it likes to fall down?" 

"It likes," Eliot agrees, squeezing, "to fall down": and Quentin wriggles in closer against him, so Eliot trails his hand up Quentin's warm back.

"It does sound interesting," Quentin asks. "Especially—is Lu letting you work on the aesthetic stuff, too?"

"Oh, yeah, totally," Eliot says—and then. "Well, sometimes." He—hesitates. "No, that's not fair—she definitely does, _way_ more than most people would, and like—I'd be incredibly fucking grateful to work with her even if she _didn't_, you know?"

"Yeah," Quentin says. Quiet. 

Eliot nods. "Except, you know, I'm not just an apprentice, am I?" He huffs. "I'm a _first-year_ apprentice, so mostly I work through all the shit metamath by hand and then as a reward, if I get it right, Lu lets me implement the shaping on the roof ledges, or something. Following her notes, but—her notes are always worth following."

"Uh huh." Quentin's eyes are very brown and very bright, a dimple showing on the left corner of his mouth, but not the right. "So, even with the relentless stress and the fourteen-hour days, your crush continues apace?"; and Eliot shifts, the sheets scraping on his skin.

"Lu won't let us work fourteen-hour days," he says; and Quentin ducks in to kiss his collarbone, giggling. "Okay—fine. Point taken." Eliot sighs. "At least she—she doesn't feel like a _boss_, you know?"

"No," Quentin says. Smiling. "I've never had a real job, remember?"

"What about Mathnasium?" 

"It's cute that you're still pretending that was a real job," Quentin says, rueful; and Eliot tugs at his hair. 

"Well, you had to wear a tie." He pets: Quentin's stubble-scratchy throat. His warm cheek. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I just mean—Lu still actually _cares_. About the work. About—_us_, she knows that _we_ care about the work. Everyone else I interviewed with didn't seem like they cared about what it looked like anymore, just that the client would shut up and pay them. And—the stuff she builds is really incredible, Q. Both—it sounds cheesy, but both form and function, like, even at Brakebills—"

"I know," Quentin says. Smiling. "You gave me a tour of the differences between the lab in the Jaakkonen building and the work she did on New Lab last spring, remember?"

"I was excited," Eliot says, feeling—weirdly defensive, and then weird about being defensive, and then just—nice, honestly: the knot under his ribs loosening when Quentin leans in to nip at his jaw.

"I know," Quentin says. Mouth warm. "It was hot."

"_You're_ hot," Eliot tells him; and Quentin presses his face to his throat again, snickering.

"You know, your comeback game is really sliding." Muffled, against Eliot's throat. "Without Margo around to keep you sharp."

"I know, it's terrible, I'm ashamed of myself," Eliot agrees. "You should spank me soundly."

"Hmm," Quentin says; as his fingers are sliding down—down—down: Eliot takes a deep, slow breath. It's not a spanking, precisely, but—it'll do.

"So." Eliot says, later. Laughs, a little. "Tell me about this trunk, hm?": as Quentin lifts his head up, Eliot's fingers slipping through his hair. "I mean—Jedi mind tricking poor unsuspecting TSA officers," Eliot says, "that's—"

"You want it now?" Quentin asks.

"—almost nefarious," Eliot finishes; and then. 

Shifts. 

"Do I want—the trunk?" Eliot asks; and then. Laughs.

"What's _inside_ the trunk," Quentin corrects. "That's your actual present, though—you can totally keep the trunk, too, so—do you want it?"

"Uh." Eliot laughs again, feeling—. "I wasn't, like—angling for a present, or something, Q, I—"

"No, I know, I'm just—excited," Quentin says, "to give it to you." Smiling. Sweet. "So—do you want it now?" 

Eliot swallows. "That depends? I have this sneaking suspicion that that would involve—you getting up. Or, like, putting pants on."

"Well, getting up yes, pants no," Quentin says. 

Eliot drums his fingers against Quentin's back ribs. "Hmm."

"Oh my God, it's for like thirty seconds," Quentin laughs. "Come on, lemme up, I'll go grab it, I think you'll like this one."

"I like most things you give me," Eliot says, propping himself up on an elbow so—so he can leer more effectively; and Quentin says, "Oh my God, shut up": giggling, but blushing, too, as he clambers out of the bed: bare all over, _God_. 

Eliot watches him pad back out into the hall, then reaches for the lamp—

—and then, he pauses. 

His heart.

He—sits up. Pushes up to his knees, turning towards the window. His candles. He could—light them instead, couldn't he? Leave the lamp off. It'd be—softer, like that. Homey. All his—all those little golden lights: the little wavering throb, at their hearts. Little fires, tucked all along his windowsill: driving back the snow and the darkness, from within their delicate little silver cups.

He reaches over. Just—_touches_, the first one, to flame. He doesn't light them, mostly, when there are other people visiting—but Quentin isn't visiting, exactly, is he? Never has been. Eliot takes a breath. Another. Another. Another—the slow, repetitive act of—making a light: it's. Meditative, isn't it. Soothing, always, honey-sweet: like—like curling up under a blanket with someone you love, or sucking your thumb. Eliot inhales—exhales—_inhales_, as he pulls the last one alight; just in time for Quentin to pad back around the corner, pulling the trunk. 

"Oh," Quentin says, hushed. "Those are—that's really lovely, El." Nodding at the candles, when Eliot turns towards him, looking up.

"...all my responses to that are incredibly cheesy," Eliot admits; and Quentin rolls his eyes. Kneeing up next to him as Eliot scoots his back up against the pillows, sitting up cross-legged and tugging the duvet straight-ish over his naked lap, so there's room to levitate the trunk up onto the bed. He nudges the radiator, too, since Quentin looks a little goosebumpy. "Cold?"

"I did tell you I wouldn't put pants on," Quentin explains, curling into his side, but he does look around. "Where's your bathrobe? I thought I saw it, during the tour."

"Hook on the bathroom door," Eliot says.

"Oh." Quentin looks back over at the corner of the hallway, visibly wilting.

"It's not that far," Eliot says. "This apartment is just—not that big. Though—here": as he crooks a finger to pull over the blanket he keeps folded-up on the end of the sofa, which is big and feather-soft and exactly the muted-grey shade that he's inclined to put Quentin in always, especially whenever no one else is around to see exactly how it shows him off when he's blushing. Quentin beams at him, as Eliot wraps it around Quentin's arms and shoulders; and then slides his arms under it, too, when Quentin climbs over into his lap. 

"Mm." Eliot licks Quentin's throat. "Is this my present?"

"N—no, can't be." Quentin arches, while Eliot pets his back. "I thought the rule was beautiful and useless. So, you know, half right, but—"

"Well—I'll take the first, if I can't get both," Eliot says, watching Quentin's whole lovely face as he flushes.

"Shut up," Quentin mutters: looking down, off to the side; but he relaxes slightly, when Eliot kisses his cheek. 

Jaw. 

Throat. 

The corner of his mouth.

"Did that line lose me present-opening privileges?" Eliot murmurs; and then lets Quentin roll off him, mostly; curling up against Eliot's side.

"Mm—no, I don't think so." Q pulls the blanket around himself. "But—you're on thin ice, so."

"I'll be good," Eliot promises, and then—pauses. "But—Margo won't be mad? If we do this without her?"

"No, I talked to her about it—as long as we wait on the rest, we have special dispensation for this one. It's just, um." Quentin takes a breath. "It's a trunk," he explains, "that I found. In the attic."

Oh: Eliot swallows, and looks back over at it again: for the first time, it feels like. 

The trunk. It's—old, he's realizing. Very old; he hadn't totally—noticed. "Does it still have an attention deflector on it?" he asks, squinting a little; and Quentin says, "Oh—shit, yes, hold on": and then twists his fingers, and Eliot—

—watches it slide from existing into _being_: becoming realer, solider, before his eyes.

It's a steamer trunk. Like, an actual steamer trunk, not a knock-off or a replica: black leather, brass hardware, no monogram—1920s, at a guess, but it's in _incredible_ condition: barely a ding, just enough discoloration on the hinges. And the lock—

"Jesus Christ, is this full of gold bars, or something?" Eliot asks, running a thumb over it: that is _way more lock_ than someone's vintage undies needs. 

"I don't know," Quentin laughs. "I don't have the key."

Eliot looks at him. "You don't have the key."

"Nope." Quentin's dimples are all out, again. "But you taught _me_ to pick locks, remember? And—I thought you'd enjoy opening it anyway."

"Hm, well. You're not wrong. But I think we need to have a talk about giving strange men vintage trunks you find in your dad's attic."

Quentin rolls his eyes. "You're not exactly some dude I met on the subway," he says. "And it seemed like it was your style"; and Eliot brushes over the lock again.

"Well," he says. "I mean—it definitely is my style": and then casts, feeling the whole of the mechanism shiver into place and then come undone—with that jammy-thick, burnt-sugar-and-black-pepper aftertaste of Quentin's magic, filling up the back of his mouth.

Eliot pauses. Hand resting on the latch, as he looks at him. "You did it first," he says: an accusation, almost.

Quentin ducks his head, _very inadequately_ hiding his smile. "I may've done."

"I'm not sure whether to shake your hand for how much better you're getting at lying to me or protest you doing it so wantonly," Eliot admits; and Quentin starts laughing.

"Will you just _open_ it already?"

"I—fine," Eliot says; and lifts the lid.

And—

—_it's just a trunk_, Quentin had said, _that I found. In the attic_.

Eliot swallows, and touches—the lining. Just a strip of it, just-barely showing, above the fabric: yellowing newsprint, from—the 1910s, probably. Maybe as late as the 20s. And—normally, Eliot suspects, he'd put his foot down over that, and claim he didn't think it was the real thing—one can take authenticity _too_ far, after all—except. Except that below that, nestled into the honeycomb of a blue-velvet insert (clearly custom-made) that fills the base of the trunk, there is—

A clock.

Or—

Well. It is a clock, Eliot thinks: it's—very obviously a clock. A cuckoo clock, Eliot might say, even; except that even if it _is_ a cuckoo clock, he's never seen one even remotely like it. It is wood, like a cuckoo clock; and vaguely house-shaped, with a roof, like a cuckoo clock; and it has—it has what must be weights, tucked in against the bottom, to drive the mechanism: just like a cuckoo clock; and the top window, under the peak of the roof, is even shuttered, as though it might, someday, emit a cuckoo—but beyond that. But beyond that, it doesn't look much like a cuckoo clock at all. It has none of the fussiness, or the sort of cutesy Germanic charm: it looks—_strange_, Eliot is thinking: strange and—and _Quentinish_, in a way that makes his throat hurt all the way down into his ribs.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/clock_01)

[A cuckoo clock; except that even if it _is_ a cuckoo clock, he's never seen one even remotely like it.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/clock_01)

"Quentin," Eliot says, quiet.

"So—okay." Quentin says, and shifts a little. Wriggling closer. "I've been—actually going through the house, you know? Finally." He sighs, and rests his cheek against Eliot's arm; so Eliot wraps it around him. 

"Yeah," Eliot says. Thick, as he. Reaches out, to touch the fine geometric designs carved into the clock's side panels, where woodstain has come to rest in the grooves, inky and drowsing. They remind him of—he doesn't know. Moroccan tiles. M.C. Escher. Honeycomb. "I'm sorry," Eliot says, quiet; and Quentin shakes his head.

"No—don't be, El. I told you I'd wait for you to come back, but then—I wanted to. I _want_ to, you know?"

Eliot nods, mute. Under his fingers, the pattern feels—satiny, careful. Delicate: an interlocking network of cells in a slightly peaked, bulbous shape that reminds him of—of the diamonds spinning above the turrets of Whitespire, honestly, more than anything else: that undeniable sense of motion, in a form that you can't entirely believe. It feels like that. Or—or like an abstract rendering, sketched by an alien, from an old man's half-remembered description, of an unusually symmetrical shallot. 

"So I was cleaning out my dad's attic," Quentin is saying, from the cove of Eliot's arm, "and—I found the trunk. And—yes, okay, I got it open, because—honestly, what would _you_ do?" 

"I'd open it," Eliot agrees. Quentin's so warm, against him, as Eliot studies the clock. He can't—look away, honestly: it's so beautiful, even if he can't—it's just. That same not-other otherness, Eliot is thinking: a series of short wooden shutters folded so flush across the wide middle window that Eliot has to slide a nail along the seam, before he's actually certain that it is a window, that it would even open. And below that—

—below that. 

"Yeah, so you get it," Quentin says; and Eliot.

Nods. 

"Yeah," he says. Throat tight. "I get it." Even as he is thinking: even if—it's not.

Something, he thinks, that I can keep.

It's just—Christ. Those side panels: hand-carved, very obviously. And then—the _bottom_, Jesus. Fully the bottom half of the clock is taken up with a window, which shows a scene. Made out of wooden cutouts. A 3D tableau, extending deep into the body of the clock: _dozens_ of them, these incredibly intricate wooden cutouts colored with about twelve different shades of woodstain, their shapes all cast in silhouette: cutouts that are trees, and cutouts that are people, and far in the background a carefully shaded set of cutouts that define a city skyline; below a few low and looming wooden clouds. There isn't a clock face, not exactly. Just the moon, heavy at the top of the bottom window. Two slim black hands stopped forever at half-past-four against a vast circle of wood, dark stained except for a single sliver left bright and glowing-pale: hanging luminous in the center of the bottom window's night sky; which is the only color in the entire scene that isn't something you can get from wood and woodstain: the sky has, instead, been painted the same rich, inky blue of the trunk's velvet lining; and fuck, Eliot loves that color. Quentin's skin, against that blue: Eliot's last year at Brakebills, he'd got sheets that color, and it had been one hundred percent a lie when he'd told Margo it was, max, only eighty, maybe ninety percent because he'd liked what Quentin looked like spread out on them. 

"This is incredible," Eliot says, very quietly, and then—touches. 

The glass.

Just over where, at the very front of the scene, there are a pair of figures, their wooden-cutout silhouettes interlocked, like puzzle pieces.

Embracing. 

"Yeah, I thought so too," Quentin says; and then—turns. Kisses Eliot's shoulder. 

"They look like us," Quentin murmurs. "Don't they?"

"You just mean that one of them is taller than the other," Eliot says. Rough. It's not—they don't have faces. None of the figures do. Just—

"I mean that the taller one is sheltering the littler one," Quentin says, quiet; and Eliot. Can feel his mouth—twisting, or—or curving up, or pulling down: as throat sore he says, "Are you sure the littler one's not holding him up?"

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/shelter)

[They look like us, don't they?](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/shelter)

Quentin hums. Sliding his palm down to Eliot's hand. "I saw it and—right away, I thought that," he says, low. "Right away, I thought of you."

"Q," Eliot's whole—_throat_ feels raw, his chest—

"I mean, it doesn't _work_, or anything," Quentin says, and then huffs. "Which is the whole reason why Margo said I could give it to you early, since—I thought I could work on it when you had to go into the office, Caleb's been encouraging me to take a break from my thesis anyway and I don't think it should be _that_ hard to fix, I was reading this ebook about vintage clockwork on the plane, and—"

"Quentin, you can't give me this," Eliot manages, somehow. Finally. Finally, Christ. Takes a breath. "This is—this has got to be worth—thousands of dollars, if not _tens_ of thousands of dollars, at _least_"; as he squeezes Quentin's hand.

"Um, excuse you, Waugh," Quentin says, pulling his face back, "but I can give the old crap I find in my dad's attic to whoever I want."

"_Quentin_," Eliot repeats; and Quentin sighs. Kneeling up.

"Look." He fits his hand around the bottom front edge of the clock, lifting it up. "You see that?"

Eliot leans in. "M. Coldwater," he reads. "Who's M. Coldwater?"

"My, um." Quentin eases the clock back down. "Matthew Coldwater. He'd be—my... great-great-grandfather, I think? I can never get the number of 'greats' right. He lived right around the turn of the century, he was a sort of—well, he was an engineer, and an inventor, kind of, though never a very successful one—I'm not sure he ever actually _invented_ anything. But I know he tinkered around with shit all the time. My grandpa was writing a book about his family, at one point." Quentin nods at the clock. "But—I'm pretty sure Matthew built it," he explains.

"Your great-great-grandfather," Eliot echoes. "Built—okay, so then—pretty sure there's not two dudes cuddling, at the front of your _great-great-grandfather's incredibly intricate hand-carved wooden clock_—"; and Quentin snort-laughs, adorably.

"How do you know?" he asks. "For all you know—"

"Quentin," Eliot says, a little desperately, for what feels like about the millionth time. "_You can't give me this_. It's incredibly valuable, so you can't give it to me; and a family heirloom on top of that, so you _definitely_ can't give it to me. That's—Jesus, I know how hard it's been, since Ted—look." Eliot shifts; turns, just enough so that he can take both of Quentin's hands in his. Quentin half-kneeling in front of him on the bed. Eliot swallows around the lump in his throat. "I wanted to be there."

"You were there," Quentin says. Quiet; and Eliot shakes his head.

"I wanted to be there for this part, too," Eliot explains. "And I—I'm so fucking sorry I haven't been, I wanted—I never wanted you to have to do this alone, I wanted to be _with_ you for this, I _know_ how hard it is, I remember—well, I mean, sort of, I didn't even _like_—but. But. But _even I_ know that you shouldn't give things away now just because they hurt, not something like—like _this_, this is—this is beautiful and strange and expensive and weird in—the most _you_ way, the most _Coldwater_ way, I think, of anything I've ever seen—this is. You're going to want this in your family, you're going to want it to be in your family _forever_, Q. You can't just—_give it away_."

"Yeah, Eliot," Quentin says. "Actually—I can. I want to." His eyes, very serious, on Eliot's face. "I want to give it to you," he says; and his voice is—gentle, for some reason.

Eliot shifts. Opens his mouth, barely; and then—

"I want you to have it, okay?" Quentin says: solid. Intractable. Turning his hands up, to take Eliot's. "You don't have to take it," Quentin says, low and quiet, "but I want to give it to you. Because—actually, Eliot, I know _exactly_ what 'family heirloom' means."

And Eliot.

Eliot can't—

His heart thuds, hard; and then he turns his palms up, to curl his fingers into Quentin's.

Another heartbeat.

(Those lights.)

"Hey." He clears his throat. "Can you—can you come up here, for a minute?"

Quentin looks at him. "Up where, precisely?"

"Up here in my lap so I can thank you properly for my present," Eliot says.

It comes out scratchy; and Quentin's eyes crinkle up. All his dimples, as he kneels up, coming over. Letting Eliot guide his warm bare knees down along the sides of Eliot's hips.

"You like it?" Quentin asks. Nuzzling.

"I love it," Eliot says, and his voice cracks. "Quentin—"

"Shh, stop worrying and kiss me," Quentin whispers; and Eliot lets out a breath and pulls Quentin closer, closer, closer: licking into his mouth with his hands in his hair, as the candles flicker, flicker, in time with the low, steady throb of their hearts. 

As outside the windows, the snow wraps around them in a boundless, blanketing hush.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/heirloom)

[Excuse you, Waugh, but I can give the old crap I find in my dad's attic to whoever I want.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/heirloom)


	2. surprise.

### 2\. surprise.

#### Sunday, December 24, 2017

"I still don't understand why you needed to get up." 

Quentin's voice is sleepy, thick; and when Eliot looks back at the bed in the mirror, Quentin pushes the duvet down a little lower, so Eliot can see—

That little dip. Of satin-soft skin: right between his hip and his thigh.

"It's almost eleven," Eliot says. 

"Yeah, but—c'mon, Margo's flight was canceled." Quentin shifts: that soft luscious _schht_ of his skin, on the sheets. His arms stretching out, overhead: "So what's the rush?" he asks, tangling his fingers up. Around the metal frame of Eliot's bed.

Eliot huffs. Shakes his head. "Come on," he says. Reaching for his shaving brush. "Did I or did I not promise to make you breakfast?"

"If this is the start of a joke about how I like my eggs in the morning, it needs work," Quentin says, and then stretches again—okay, well, now he's just showing off. "It's vacation," he adds. "Aren't you supposed to have fun, on vacation? I seem to recall _someone_ telling me that schedules weren't fun."

"That was Margo," Eliot says, "and it wasn't schedules, it was lists, because you brought a checklist of things you wanted to do in Greece on spring break. Even Julia was disappointed in you."

"Julia loves my checklists," Quentin protests; and then tilts his head. "Come on": not quite a whine, but nearly. "Come play with me."

"We can play after breakfast," Eliot says, after a long, deeply conflicted second: because left to his own devices, Quentin will _totally_ choose sex over food until he has a massive blood sugar crash and it tanks his mood for like four days, which they'd learned the hard way during that honey-thick extended blur of a first-weekend-of-freedom-after-finals: spring semester, Eliot's second year. Eliot had thought, up 'til then, that having a beautiful boy crying on his dick was sort of—universally Peak Fantasy, but—not like that. _That_ he never wants to do ever again. Eliot lets himself look, though, while he's getting his jaw all foamed up for shaving, because he's only human. He actually had originally put the big mirror in his bedroom because the one in the bathroom's more or less impossible to defog, but this is a _very_ nice side effect: being able to linger over Quentin's fuzzy stomach, his pink nipples, his long lashes and wet mouth and the just-flushed line of his throat, arched back, as he rubs a hand over his stomach and then back down under the duvet: "_Hey_," Eliot says, a little sharply; and oh, _there_ he is: Quentin's eyes flying open to look at him, black and still. 

Eliot takes a breath, slow. He hadn't completely meant to—his hands are—. "You want to play after breakfast?" he asks. Flexing them: he can't—Jesus, he's covered in shaving foam, it's not like he can just—he flicks some extra heat into the bowl of water on the shallow console table he uses as a vanity, and then picks up his razor. Looking back in the mirror at Quentin, still watching him with those huge, dark eyes.

"Or," Eliot says, as he starts in on his cheek: careful. Steady. "you can come over here, and play at Daddy's feet."

Fifty-fifty odds, he's thinking. Forty-sixty, maybe: a lot of the time Quentin can't hit it that fast and ends up teasing Eliot for the entire rest of the day, but when it works, it's like a key in a lock, so: worth it, basically. Like. Like how _this_ time, Quentin just slides up out from under the duvet; and then drops, immediately, to his knees. 

Eliot swallows, while Quentin's still shuffling over to rest his cheek against Eliot's bare thigh. His eyes closed: long, long lashes. Eliot sets the razor down for a second, rinses his hand off and wipes it off on the towel, and then reaches down to pet Quentin's hair back.

"Like this?" Eliot asks, very gently.

"Yes, please," Quentin says. Thick. Pressing closer: Christ he's warm.

"You're such a good boy," Eliot sighs. Brushes a damp knuckle over the tip of Quentin's nose, helpless, and Quentin shivers all over. Turning his face in against Eliot's hip. Eliot asks, "Can you show me how quietly you can play by yourself, while I shave?"

Quentin doesn't answer right away. "I want to play with you," he says, finally; and then flushes, bright red: all the way over his face and shoulders, hunching up.

Ah. Got it: Eliot takes a deep, steadying breath, trying to ignore that hot, vicious coil of possessive satisfaction. "Well," he says, after a second. "I need to finish shaving, so—you can play very, very gently with me, but only when I say, okay?" He takes another breath. "Because—you can be pretty distracting, baby."

Quentin makes a small, hot noise, and then turns to press a softsoftsoft kiss, to the very tip of Eliot's dick: Jesus, that kills him. Eliot looks back up at the mirror—and God, that's not _better_ is it? He's still naked with his face covered in shaving foam and Quentin kneeling at his feet, totally glazed on a phrase and a half while he nuzzles at the side of Eliot's cock as it chubs up and Jesus, Eliot can _still_ get him going in about half a second, with six syllables and the right tone of voice, can't he? _Christ_. If Eliot pulled him up by the hair right now Quentin would just—go, wouldn't he? Trust him, absolutely: let Eliot fold him over the end of the bed, pin him to the wall, keep him right there on his knees while Eliot gave him the first three inches of his cock to work with and nothing else because Quentin's incredibly fucking shitty at remembering how to manage his gag reflex when it's been a minute but sure, fine. Steady hands. Shaving. No problem. 

"Be good for me, baby," Eliot reminds him; and when Quentin makes another little sound, half-nodding, Eliot reaches for his razor.

He makes a stroke. Another. Quentin is being so, so good: just-nuzzling down against the side of Eliot's balls: Christ. _Christ_: when he comes back a little Eliot's going to _feed_ them to him, but—not now. Now, a tiny lick: God. Eliot tries to keep his jaw loose enough that he doesn't cut himself, as—very, very slowly—he works his way down towards his chin. At his feet, Quentin makes another devastatingly kittenish little noise, and then licks at the base of Eliot's cock.

"You know," Eliot says. As conversationally as he can manage. "If you make a mess down there, I'm expecting you to clean it up": and Quentin moans, full-on, and then opens his mouth.

Eliot sets the razor down. He doesn't—he's half-shaved, still damp from his shower with sweat already gathering under his arms, at the small of his back, and Quentin is being so, so good: with his hand in his lap in a fist but not—not actually _jerking off_, just—holding his hand there, just enough to—to _justbarely_ push against and Eliot told him to do that, like, once, like eight months ago, and—and he's still— "God, you're perfect," Eliot chokes out, "Christ—Q, stop, stop, honey": and Quentin pulls off and presses his forehead against Eliot's hip. Long, guitar-string shivers running down the whole long beautiful line of his back. "You're just so good," Eliot explains. Throat tight. "You're just—you're so good and so beautiful and I just—I just want to play with you for hours, okay?"

"Yes, please," Quentin whispers, and then rubs his face against him. Hot. 

Eliot swallows. "Can you open your eyes?" he asks, and Quentin takes a breath. Does it, very slowly: Christ he's gone, isn't he. Eliot rinses his hand off again, so he can touch him: Quentin's soft hair, rough cheek: cupping his lovely stubbly chin in the palm of his hand. "I'm going to kiss you," Eliot tells him, "so much, when I'm done—I'm going to kiss you all over, for being so—"

—and the doorbell rings.

Eliot jumps—reflex—then pets, as steadily as he can, at Quentin's hair. "No, shh, it's okay, it's okay, that's nothing you need to worry about, okay?"

Quentin is still looking up at him, a furrow just-starting in between his eyebrows, lips parted: "No," Eliot reminds him, "that's for Daddy and you don't need to worry about it." Tugging, gentle, at that dumb little flip of hair: and Quentin's shoulders loosen, barely. "It's probably UPS," Eliot says, "we can just ign—" 

—and the doorbell rings again: Jesus fucking Christ.

Eliot inhales, slow. Exhales: one, two, three. "Okay," he says: his chest tight, at the sort of tensed, half-guarded look that's coming back into Quentin's eyes. Eliot crouches down, petting Quentin's hair back. "This is pulling you out, isn't it," he murmurs, "we can't just ignore them?"; and Quentin nods. Eyes slipping—shut. "Okay, it's okay, we're going to take care of it together, okay?" Eliot keeps his hand in Quentin's hair, looking—a little desperately—around the room; and the doorbell rings _again_, damn it, Jesus fucking Christ; "Just a second," Eliot calls, with Quentin's shoulders hunching towards his ears until Eliot tugs on his hair, sharp; and Quentin settles. Breathing out, head bowed. God, he makes Eliot want to—set the fucking building on fire: just because UPS needs a fucking signature, Jesus Christ.

"Okay," Eliot says. Takes another careful breath: "You're so good—can you help me?"

"Yes," Quentin says, thick. "Pl—Daddy—"

"I know, shh, you're being _so_ good, you're just—my very best favorite boy." Eliot kisses his forehead, clumsy: leaves shaving foam all over Quentin's face. Fuck. Eliot grabs the towel, to wipe it off. "Okay—here's what you're going to do." Voice firm. "Can you stand up?" Which—Quentin can, sort of, with Eliot steadying him, but—not very gracefully. Unsteady on his feet. Eliot cups his chin. "Good boy," he says, squeezing; and Quentin shivers. Blinking dark, dark eyes: okay, Eliot thinks. This—could work, maybe. "Okay. You know the hook on the bathroom door? There're two bathrobes on it. You know mine, and—I bought the other one for you. You can pick," he adds, because—this is maybe not the time to stick Quentin in a silky juniors-medium shortie robe covered in flowers: later, though—later, definitely. "So you're going to go and pick out a bathrobe and pretend to be a big boy and answer the door," Eliot says, "while I finish shaving, okay? Does that sound good?" 

And—yeah, that might actually—do it, Eliot is thinking: because Quentin's shoulders are already relaxing, even before he nods. 

"Good boy." Eliot tucks his dumb flippy hair behind his ear. "Go on, get yourself covered up and answer the door, I'll be quick"; and Quentin nods again, before he stumbles out around the half-wall between the sleeping area and the entryway.

The silencing spells haven't fully worn off—shit. If Eliot'd been less—deranged, in the moment, he should've just recast them, but it didn't occur to him, and now—he can hear Quentin's voice, at the door, just barely, as Eliot tries to do his best to hurry and also not cut himself shaving. He can't hear the UPS guy, but it seems like an awfully long convo, if all he needs is a signature—

—and then Quentin comes back into the sleeping area, looking—well, all the way back in his head, for one thing, damn it, and also—kind of perplexed. He's wearing the bathrobe Eliot bought him, though, which is—almost fatally alluring. "Do you know a girl named Rachel?" Quentin asks. "Or—uh, woman, I mean. Sorry." He grimaces, undoubtedly imagining Margo's reaction: Eliot waves it off.

"I know a couple Rachels." Eliot's trying to think which of them know where he lives. "Rachel who? What does she look like?"

"Um." Quentin tries to scrape his hair back, in that antsy frustrated way he's gotten, sometimes, since he cut it: "I don't know, she's like—thirty-five? Forty? She's, very, uh. Hot?" Flushing. He shrugs, awkward. "Like—nice-looking? Dark hair, brown eyes, taller than Margo but shorter than me?"

Eliot frowns. That could be—Nick's girlfriend Rachel, from across the courtyard, maybe? She could be mistaken for late thirties if she was super hungover, maybe— "Um." Eliot still has like a third of his face left. "Can you just go ask her her last name? If she seems legit—uh, shit, hold on." Eliot casts a quick illusion: a wall, anchored over the hanging panels, so at least he's not going to be just—standing there with his dick out. "If she says her name's Rachel White, can you just stick her in the kitchen and then grab me my robe? With her back towards _that_, ideally": nodding at the panels. "Her boyfriend's one of my neighbors and he has the same floorplan, so that's kind of risky, but—she wouldn't be over unless something was really wrong? Let me just—"

Quentin's already nodding, so Eliot reaches over and touches his cheek.

"Raincheck?" Eliot asks; and Quentin laughs, a little.

"Yeah, I know you're good for it, don't worry." He leans up and kisses the already-shaved right side of Eliot's face; then the corner of his mouth, very quickly; and then he darts back out into the hall.

Okay. Focus, Eliot thinks; and gets back to shaving: he'd've said that his hands were totally steady, except that then Quentin comes back in, bright red and cringing, and says, "Um—she says she's. Your mom?": and Eliot cuts his cheek so badly that he sees the blood before he even feels it.

"_Shit!_ Jesus—are you—what'm I saying, of course you're serious. My _mom_? Really?" He's fumbling for the towel, but Quentin's already coming over: batting Eliot's hand away.

"Yeah, I—stuck her at the table in the kitchen, since—hey, don't, come on, you know I can fix that in like two seconds," he sighs; so Eliot—lets him, heart pounding: lets Quentin in his (oh God) tiny girls' shortie robe cast the basic healing spell every Brakebills first-year learns, but that only healers and hopelessly emotionally overgenerous tinkerers ever seem to actually make work any better than a Band-Aid. 

"Better?" Quentin asks, quiet, wiping blood and shaving foam off Eliot's face.

"Yeah." Eliot—_Christ_. "Fuck—I'm sorry, Q, I thought—uh, just let me." He casts around, kind of helplessly; and finally spots his grey trousers from the day before, half-hidden under the bed, and—well, shimmies into them commando: he can't see a shirt that's not—crumpled and cringingly encrusted in come, but—Quentin's hoodie's draped over the footboard and looks basically okay: it'll have to do. "Do you want to—be there for this?" Eliot asks. "Or—"

Quentin crosses his arms over his chest, grimacing. Shoulders hunching up: "Do you—not want me there?" he asks; which—

"Jesus, I want _you_ there, I'm just not sure I want _her_ there," Eliot says; and then sighs. "I—okay, fuck, I guess this had to happen at some point, so—let me just—introduce you," Eliot says, "to my mother!": and then lifts his hands, helpless; and Quentin meets his eyes; and then both of them laugh: once, sharp and painful. Quentin puts his palm over his own mouth, eyes scrunching closed; Eliot swallows and brushes his fingers over Quentin's stubbly cheek, and then takes his hand.

Kisses him, quick: just—to steady himself: once more unto, et cetera.

"Mom, hey," Eliot says. Laughs, a little, coming over to kiss her cheek: God, Quentin wasn't kidding, she hasn't aged a day. "Hey, I had no idea you were going to be in Chicago—um. Sorry. This is Quentin—Quentin Coldwater": he squeezes Quentin's hand, then lets go so that Quentin can shake Rachel's. Eliot laughs again, touching his palm to Quentin's back: oh, shit, he's still—in that stupid fucking— "He, um—he's my boyfriend," Eliot explains, "he's visiting from New York while, uh—he still has a semester left of grad school, so, um." Eliot laughs. Stops, again; with some difficulty. Takes a breath. "Q, this is my mom, Rachel—"

"—Weiner," she says, smiling up at Quentin, "I went back to my maiden name after Craig died": and—okay, Eliot thinks. Oh. Okay.

"Hi," Quentin says, and then—laughs, very awkwardly. "Uh—sorry, I wasn't. Exactly. We thought you were the UPS guy?" He folds his arms over his chest, which pulls the robe tighter, which—_Oh, Q, no, baby_, Eliot is thinking, chest aching with something between laughing and weeping, because that definitely—does not make him look less slutty. "Do you—I was about to make coffee?" Quentin says, and then laughs again, glancing up at Eliot: eyes wide and slightly frantic; and Eliot nods and nods and nods. 

"Yeah, yeah, that's—a good idea—Mom, do you want some coffee?" Turning, slightly, so that Quentin can scamper over into the far corner of the kitchen and—_reach up to get some cups down_, oh, _no_—

"So Mom!" Eliot says, sidling around the table and hoping she'll just—keep watching him, and not the—the free show, over there by the dish drainer: "What brings you to Chicago?" Eliot asks. Laughs, again: Jesus, he'd've hoped that—at least she's still looking at him and not— "I thought you were still living in, um—it was—Buffalo, right?"

"Oh, no, no, I—" Rachel laughs, too. "I've moved a lot, actually," she says, "since Buffalo. I was, um." Fidgeting: "I was living in Seattle, actually?" She nods, turning—faintly pink. "Up until—until November, when—so then I—well, you know." Eliot doesn't. "But I—I was in town, today, so. So I thought I'd stop by," she says, "say hi," and then. 

Laughs.

"Um—do you put sugar in your coffee, Ms. Weiner?" Quentin asks, leaning—_no_—for the next cupboard; and Rachel says, "Oh—no, thank you, and—please call me Rachel, Quentin": turning slightly, so desperate Eliot says, "Oh! Mom!": and both of them look at him, so Eliot says, "Did you guys—I think I feel a draft, maybe—Quentin, can you check, did you get the front door all the way closed?": and Quentin, bless him, follows instantly, and drops down onto his heels: the hem of the robe dropping back to the barest of all possible levels of decency, as he looks down. Eliot says, "Um, there's that, um—"

"_Right_," Quentin says, sounding slightly strangled. "_Right_": as he darts back out into the hall. "Right, the _door_, you have to—"

Rachel looks back at Eliot, who laughs, again. He probably sounds like a deranged parrot. "You have to lift up on the handle to get it to close," he improvises, and then gets up, to actually start the coffee. "If you don't, it, uh. It just. Swings open, a couple minutes later? It's really annoying. Quentin said he was going to fix that for me, though": he says, louder, "after he showered."

"Right," Quentin calls back, "I—no, yes, I'll—I was going to take a shower! I'll be right out! After I take a shower, and then—then I'll come have some _coffee_!"

"We love coffee!" Eliot yells after him, too loudly; and then—_hears_ himself; and seriously: if he didn't live on the second floor, he'd just start casting right then for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

"I'm _so_ sorry," Rachel says, when Eliot comes back to the table with her coffee, sliding into the chair across from her: his coffee maker is an off-brand Keurig, so it only makes one cup at a time, anyway. 

"No, it's—

"I didn't mean to—intrude, or. Anyway": she laughs, again; and then takes a too-hasty too-hot gulp of coffee before he can warn her, and then winces.

"No, no, Mom—it's fine, really." Eliot gets back up and heads over to the sink. "It's fine, honestly, we just—we weren't expecting you, that's all." He brings her a glass of cold water, which she sips, nodding gratefully. He takes a breath. "I would've—if I'd known you were going to be in town, I would've—you know, met you for lunch, or something?" he tries: fuck. His coffee's still brewing. He wants a cigarette.

"I—yeah." She shifts, and then takes a sip of coffee: more carefully this, time. "It was a bit—short notice." Hesitating. "I just—I drove up from Indianapolis this morning?" she asks.

It takes Eliot a second to realize it's not actually a question. He blinks. "Oh—you're—are you back in—uh."

She rubs at her face. "I've been—I was staying with friends," she says, finally. "While—for a while."

"Oh," he says, when it starts to get weird that he hasn't said anything at all.

Just then, the coffee maker clicks off, and Eliot gets up to swap the mugs out, trying to—untangle himself, a little, while he doesn't have to actually look at her.

"Eliot," she says, then; from across the kitchen. 

When he looks up, she's turned to face him: her arm resting over the back of her chair. She's wearing a shapeless olive-green jacket and—not-totally-horrible jeans, which is—honestly kind of surprising. Dark rinse, at least. Her hair's frizzing up, with the weather, but—so is Eliot's probably: he finger-combs it back, feeling self-conscious, and then remembers, just then, that he's still wearing yesterday's pants and Quentin's hoodie and no underwear, and also that he never finished shaving.

"_Can_ I take you out to lunch?" Rachel asks; and then her face goes through a complicated, unreadable series of expressions before settling on _slightly embarrassed_. "I mean—you and Quentin, of course," she says; and Eliot feels—that familiar surge of heat: rushing out through every part of him before it lashes back, to coil up in his stomach in a knot. "I'd like to—to catch up with you," his mom is explaining: the corners of her eyes are pinched, slightly. He wonders why. "Get to know—," she says; "—both of you, honestly": just as Quentin rounds the corner (damp-haired, in jeans and a t-shirt, feet bare), and then—hesitates, looking over at Eliot, with his hand just-resting against the end of the hall wall.

"Hey, El, can you show me where you keep your screwdriver?" Quentin asks; and Eliot takes a breath.

"Yeah," he says, and then turns back, just for a second, to start Quentin's coffee. "Um—sorry, Mom, give me—just a second"; and then lets Quentin tug him back into—into the closet, naturally, of course, right, why _wouldn't_ he—but then Quentin keeps pulling, tugging him all the way into the bathroom: with the air thick and heavy with steam and smelling like Quentin, even before Quentin slides an arm around Eliot's waist, nudging the door shut behind him with his foot.

One. Two. Three: breathing, Eliot closes his eyes. Bending forward, pressing his face into Quentin's throat: still scratchy, because Q's—an animal, and he didn't shave. 

"You okay?" Quentin asks, very quietly. Resting his hand on Eliot's shoulder: squeezing, steady.

Eliot's heart. That slow, seasick throb:. "I'm—kind of off-balance," he admits, after a second; and Quentin turns, so his mouth is pressing against Eliot's temple. "We haven't talked in a really long time," Eliot explains; and then—puts. Puts his arms around Quentin: his whole solid warm amazing little body. God. Okay: Eliot takes another breath, careful. Grounding himself to the Earth. 

"Haven't talked, like, _don't_ talk?" Quentin asks, very low.

Eliot swallows, thick. "No," he says. "No, I mean—haven't talked like, we just haven't talked, that's all." He swallows, then explains, "It's not—she's not like that, Q. She's okay."

"Okay," Quentin murmurs. Rubbing the small of Eliot's back.

Eliot breathes in one last lungful of warmcloseQuentiny air, and then thinks he can lift up his head. "Thanks," he says, blinking down at him; and Quentin nods.

"Yeah, of course." He pauses, then; and—_uh-oh_, Eliot thinks, watching—that first tiny hint of a dimple, just starting to show: little, and lovely, and wry. "So—if you're okay," Quentin asks, cupping Eliot's cheek, "does that mean that now I can yell at you for not preparing me to find out that your mom's, you know. Hot, and also like forty, and also still alive?"

"She's forty-five," Eliot says; and Quentin's smile breaks as wide and bright as the dawn.

"Yeah," Quentin says. "Way to really go for the meat of _that_ one, babe." He rubs at his forehead. "So, okay, what's the plan? Are we going to lunch with her? Or like, shunting her into a Lyft because I suddenly have a terrible case of food poisoning and am projectile vomiting all over your bathroom?"; and Eliot—Christ, he loves him; and he just—keeps realizing it and realizing it, over and over and over. He touches Quentin's scratchy cheek.

"We can go to lunch with her," he says. "You—I didn't finish shaving, and you—"

"I have to pretend to fix your doorknob, remember?" Quentin says. "Go on, get cleaned up, I give good mom, don't worry."

"God, I'm not worried about _you_, she's going to fucking love _you_," Eliot blurts out; and then takes a deep, slow breath, pushing his hair out of his face. Quentin reaches up. Touches his mouth, so Eliot kisses his palm; and Quentin rubs at the side of Eliot's throat.

"Sweetheart," Quentin says, gentle; and Eliot closes his eyes. Shakes his head, a little: "I—okay," Quentin says, "okay"; and then sighs. 

Eliot leans down to kiss him, feeling—stunned. Almost—_flattened_ with gratitude: and Quentin makes one of his slutty little noises and licks Eliot's mouth open; and Eliot feels—uncontainably grateful for that, too.

"Want me to bring you your coffee?" Quentin asks, rubbing their noses together; and Eliot—breathes. 

"Yeah," he says. After a second. "I do."

Quentin nods. "Anything else I should know, before I go out there?" Eliot straightens up, looking down at Quentin: blinking up at him with his cheeks pink and his mouth kissed red, and still. Still fucking _hanging onto him_, his hand tucked around the back of Eliot's neck. "Like, for starters—where _do_ you keep your toolkit?" Quentin asks. "And also—any other secret family members? Mad grandma in the attic?"

Eliot touches Quentin's cheek. "Top shelf of the closet, right side as you go out—far end, by the front door." He takes a breath. "And—no, just—it's. Just us, these days."

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/eliot_rachel)

[No, it's just us, these days."](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/eliot_rachel)

Quentin's face softens. He nods, and leans up for another kiss: murmuring, "Hey—rinse off again, okay? Use that fancy shower gel Margo gave you. It helps you calm down," which. Eliot knows that, obviously: but it still uncoils something inside him, that Quentin knows it, too.

"Yeah." Eliot swallows, rubbing his thumb against Quentin's jaw. "Hey," he says. Throat scratchy. "Q—thank you, baby."

Quentin nods, and gives Eliot's ass a squeeze, on his way out of the bathroom.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Eliot had actually forgotten what day it was, until they're standing out front of Lula staring at a big cheerful notice taped up in the window that says, "WE WILL REOPEN ON WED. 12/27. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!"

"Uh—okay." He turns back towards them, hands shoved in his gloves in his pockets: Quentin looks cold, though, brushing snow away from his face, so Eliot unhinges an arm to wrap it around him. "So I—forgot it was Christmas Eve," Eliot says, "but—I mean, the bars are open, probably"; and then.

Laughs.

But Quentin is already digging his phone out, in the little cavern of shelter between his chest and Eliot's; Rachel, standing across from them, looks awkward and misplaced, in her unstylish eighteen-year-old blue duffel coat and the boots she used to wear in the dead of winter when things got dire enough that she had to help out on the farm, no matter how clumsy she was, and inexperienced, and slow—and fuck, it wasn't like Eliot had ever been fast enough either: he takes a breath. Ducks his head. Steady, he thinks. Steady.

"Cozy Corner?" Quentin asks, after a second. "Any good?"

"Uh, yeah, that's—I mean, it's not great, but it's—fine," Eliot says; and Quentin nods, pressing his phone up against his ear.

"Hi, I was just wondering if you guys were open today," Quentin says, and then nods again, meeting Eliot's eyes. "'Til four? Okay, great, thank you." He hangs up and says, "They're open 'til four": totally unnecessary, but sweet. "It looked close enough to walk, but—I don't know, is it, in this? Should we get a Lyft?"

"My car's back at the apartment," Rachel offers; and—God, no, Eliot's spent long enough driving in deathly silence with his mother to last for eight to ten lifetimes.

"Oh, no, um—I don't even think it's, like, half a mile away." Eliot shifts, tense. "Is this really too bad to walk?" he asks Quentin, since Quentin tends to run cold; but Quentin shrugs, looking at Rachel; who just—hesitates. Finally Eliot settles on explaining, "I mean, we could get a Lyft, I guess, but we'll have to wait out here for—God knows how long, and." He takes a breath. Laughs, a little. "I mean, we definitely won't gain anything by going back, it's sort of—a triangle." Swallowing. "There and here and the apartment."

Quentin nods. "It's weird how that happens," he says, very seriously, "when you have three things": and Rachel barks out an awkward, startled laugh.

Eliot looks at her, then—turns. Back to Quentin. "So, okay," he says. Laughing again. "Then—forward, march?": and leads them around the corner onto Milwaukee.

The snow isn't really too bad—not yet, at least; and it's warmer, honestly, than it'd been the day before, when they'd been better than half-levitating Q's luggage home from the L with the clouds gathering before the biting-cold wind: Eliot hadn't felt it then, though, had he. He tries to give them the tour, or whatever, but he keeps catching himself and saying, like, "This is—a dentist. They're—uh, into teeth," while trying to avoid accidentally saying something he _really_ doesn't want to tell Quentin in front of his mom, like: _This is the Owl, it's where I go when I still want to get drunker after the Whirlaway closes_, or: _That over there is the Whistler, they have that queer dance night where I go to grind on boys who look like you_. Besides, Eliot has barely left his apartment except to go to work since, like, October, so—

"That it?" Quentin asks, nodding across the street; but they have a giant sign that says, _COZY CORNER_, so it's not exactly a real question.

"Yup, that's it," Eliot says anyway; and lets Quentin grab his hand. Tug him across California and into the parking lot, with Rachel trailing just behind.

Inside, it's overwarm and loud, and when the girl up front tells them it'll be a ten minute wait, Eliot considers stripping off all his clothes and running naked into the snow rather than adding ten minutes to his purgatorial brunch with his mother, but—well. Quentin needs to eat, so—Eliot smiles and thanks her, carefully repressing his building panic attack.

"Ten minutes," he explains, to Quentin and Rachel; "You want a smoke?" Quentin asks, angel of mercy that he is, but Eliot wouldn't do that to him. He shakes his head, wrapping his arm back around Quentin's shoulders, instead.

"No," he says. "I can wait."

"So, uh," Quentin says to Rachel, tugging off his gloves. "You said—you drove up from Indianapolis?"

"Yeah." Rachel pushes her hair back, pink under her freckles from the cold. "Um—up 65."

Quentin nods. "Is it—a long drive?" he asks, and then looks desperately at Eliot.

"It's—well, it took me ages, but it's only about three hours, usually?" Rachel says, squinting. "I think? I haven't done it much since—well, it's been a while."

"The traffic must've been awful," Eliot says. Squeezing the back of Quentin's neck.

"Bad, yes," she agrees. Nodding.

So. That's about—forty-five seconds killed, then.

After a long, painful stretch of the clatter of plates and the shrieking eight-year-old two booths away, Rachel asks, "Um—have you ever been to Indianapolis, Quentin?"

"This is my first time in the Midwest, actually," Quentin admits, "so—no," hunching into his jacket; and Rachel immediately hunches down into hers, her cheeks turning scarlet. 

"I can't say I'd recommend Indianapolis," Eliot says, as lightly as he can.

"I don't think anyone recommends Indianapolis," Rachel says, very flat; and Eliot hesitates, looking over at her. She'd always seemed to like Indianapolis just fine.

"So, um, what brings you to Chicago?" Quentin asks, wide-eyed and a little too fast; and then the hostess calls, "Eliot, party of three?"

Thank God. Eliot raises a finger, and the hostess gives him a harried sort of smile as he shepherds Quentin and his mother towards her: following them through the throng of underfed and cranky families: probably crammed into what are legitimately, he imagines, much worse holiday weekends than his. He sidles into the booth beside Quentin while the girl passes them their menus; and then, under the table, Eliot takes Q's left hand in his right. Letting Quentin squeeze as hard as he likes.

"Um." Rachel shifts, on the booth bench opposite them. "So, Eliot, what's good here?"

Eliot wants to tell her that he doesn't exactly spend a lot of time patronizing the Cozy Corner—but. "The omelettes are pretty good," he says. "Or—you're not low-carb or something, are you?"

"Low what?" Rachel says, looking sort of shocked.

"Yeah," Eliot says, and folds his menu up. "Get the banana bread French toast."

Her face scrunches up. "They make French toast out of banana bread?" she says, and Eliot laughs: all of a sudden remembering when Marianne had died and Mrs. Langley had brought them a Jell-O mold with pickle pieces in it and called it a salad. _No one ever did teach you to cook properly, did they_, Mrs. Langley had said, while Rachel nodded agreeably; and Eliot, age six, had—for a moment—taken it as read.

"In this particular case," Eliot says, "it's good. If you're in the mood for something sweet."

She tilts her head, thinking; then closes her menu. "I could go for something sweet," she says, and then—

—she looks at Quentin—still bowed over his menu—with an expression that Eliot can't even remotely read.

"Omelettes are good?" Quentin asks. Not looking up.

Eliot nods. "Omelettes are good." Around the knot in his throat.

So when the waiter—a big, heavyset college boy with blue eyes and round red cheeks and, very obviously, a burgeoning sexuality crisis—comes to take their order, Quentin orders a Greek omelette, Rachel gets the banana bread French toast and a side of bacon, and Eliot asks for the eggs Benedict and a literal vat of coffee, which makes the waiter blush but also come back about two minutes later with three mugs and a thermal pitcher to leave on the table, which—Eliot didn't think they did that here, but he's not exactly complaining.

"_Someone_ has a crush," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot clears his throat and asks, "So, uh—how long are you in Chicago, Mom?"

Rachel has her hands cupped around her mug, her face pink. She's not looking at them now, is she. "Oh, you know," she says, which is. Not an answer; but then— "So," she says, "you two met in grad school?"

"Yeah." Quentin squeezes Eliot's hand, hot and grounding. "El graduated in the spring—he's a year ahead of me, and I was—uh, kind of a disaster, honestly, when I first showed up, so he. Sort of took me under his wing."

It's—not inaccurate, exactly, but it's definitely a more parent-friendly version of that story than the one where Eliot saw Quentin stumbling across the Brakebills lawn and immediately thought, in rapid succession, first: _uptight straight boy_, and then: _hm, tasty_. He'd only been about half right, but it'd proved to be one of those all-too-rare occasions where being wrong came with absolutely zero regrets.

Rachel is nodding. "What did you study?" she asks Eliot. "Still—theater, or—"

Eliot—laughs. "I—no," he says. "No, I—didn't quite have the stomach for acting, as it turns out. But architecture turned out to be—a _fairly_ decent use of all the ways I'm good at being beautiful and useless": smiling; as Quentin kicks his ankle, light, under the table.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/architect)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/architect)

[Architecture turned out to be—a _fairly_ decent use of all the ways I'm good at being beautiful and useless.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/architect)

Rachel's eyebrows scrunch together. "Oh," she says, and then clears her throat. "And—are you an architect, too, Quentin?"

"_Me_?" Quentin laughs. "I—oh, no, definitely no, I'm not—I'm not artistic," he explains, "like—at all."

She fiddles with her napkin. "So, what do you study?"

"It's, um, sort of a niche field?" Quentin says. Fluent, after a year, nearly, of muddling through it with the nurses: "I mostly work on cellular biology, but it's like. Kind of wrapped up in environmental science? And, like—some parts of it are more like bioengineering." He shrugs, a little. Hunches down. "I'm working on how to prevent plants from pulling toxic chemicals into the food supply, basically," he explains, as he fusses with his silverware: unwrapping the napkin, moving the fork to the left, straightening the knife and spoon on the right.

"Oh," Rachel says, and then looks back down at her mug. "I, um." She laughs. "I barely passed high school biology"; and Eliot looks past them both and out the window. 

Outside, the snow is thickening, the cars parked across the street already blurring, fading into white. It'll get worse before it gets better, but—he hadn't minded all that much, had he, when it'd been—just him and Quentin, curling together, nose to nose and knee to knee. This morning, after Margo's text had woken them up, they'd lain there in the overheated stillness of the storm; and it had felt, for an instant, like they were the last two people on earth. Like the world might be disintegrating, and they'd have to just—build it again, when the snow stopped. Ground up. Rachel's sudden bark of laughter calls him back to the table; and Eliot refocuses on Quentin's pink face, lovely and smiling, between Eliot and the storm outside. 

"No, no," Quentin is explaining. "I'm serious. Star of the school, honestly."

"Sorry, I zoned out for a second," Eliot laughs—_Jesus_—and, and grabs his coffee: saluting them both with it before taking a sip. "What're we talking about?"

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

[It had felt, for an instant, like they were the last two people on earth.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/small_gifset)

"You," Quentin says, smiling; and Eliot—chokes.

"Me?" He laughs. "Star of the school? Come on, Q, I barely even—"

"Welters," Quentin says; and Eliot tenses. Laughs, because—; but Quentin's eyebrow twitches up: as if to ask, _Trust me?_; and—Eliot always does. So.

"Well—I was okay, I guess," Eliot says, "at welters": and leaves everything else in Quentin's broad, steady hands.

Quentin smiles at him: those _dimples_. Christ. "He and Margo—she's our, uh—she's our best friend—sort of like... more like family, honestly, if that weren't sort of—anyway," Quentin is explaining, turning back to Rachel, "and their first year, they found a whole bunch of old books about this like—dumb school game, from the 1800s"; and Eliot's impressed, honestly, how well he's doing at avoiding the magical elephant in the room: ten points to Hufflepuff, or whatever. "And they basically single-handedly reintroduced it to campus—taught everyone all this old strategy and theory, got everyone really into it." Q nudges his shoulder into Eliot's. "Everyone in the graduate program, at least."

"Well, the undergrads are always hopeless," Eliot says, "you can't expect _me_ to fix that"; and Quentin ducks down over his coffee, smiling.

"What—uh, what kind of game is it?" Rachel says; and before Eliot can even start coming up with an answer, Quentin explains, "It's sort of like a cross between live-action chess and ultimate frisbee."

"Oh," Rachel says, blinking. "I, uh—okay?"

"You have to, um, capture squares?" Quentin leans forward. "Like—it's territory-based? But you're both the pieces and the players."

"Like... Carcassone, but with people?" Rachel asks.

"I think maybe more like Settlers of Catan?" Quentin hazards, head tilting.

Eliot laughs. Asks, "Where the heck did you hear about Carcassone?"

"Oh, there was a regular game night in Seattle," Rachel says: which—_what_?; but Quentin is already explaining, "Margo's definitely the best at strategy, but Eliot was always the best individual player—he was the strongest person on the team. Fastest, too," he adds, very loyally.

"You're a little bit biased, baby," Eliot reminds him; and then—horribly, excruciatingly—he can feel himself blushing, just as their corn-fed all-American baby-gay waiter comes back to set down Eliot's eggs Benedict and Rachel's bacon and banana bread French toast.

"The, um—the omelette'll be. Just a minute," the waiter says, shooting a series of looks at Eliot that are—just the frosting, really, that this meal needs.

"Uh—yeah," Eliot says. 

Beside him, Quentin, dimpling, just smiles up at the waiter, then back at Eliot: "That's okay," he's saying, eyes dancing, "I can just share yours."

And—

Normally, Eliot would do a lot more than give Quentin as many bites of his eggs Benedict as he wanted while they waited for the waiter to sullenly return with one _very_ overdue omelette, just for the all-too-rare joy of getting to watch Quentin channelling everything he learned from trolls on Tumblr in service of being petty and possessive _over Eliot_, but it's—weird, that's all, when they're sitting across from his _actual, literal mother_.

"This is—really good," Rachel says; and then shifts, half-laughing. "I always forget how good the bacon can be, in the Midwest. Even if it's not exactly—"

She stops.

"Not exactly..." Quentin prompts; and she laughs. Waves a hand.

"I grew up in Chicago," she explains. "Or, well—Skokie, it's—a suburb, just to the north of the city, but close enough that—whenever I'm doing something like this I always half-worry that my old rabbi is going to turn up behind me and—uh, you know."

Quentin looks at Eliot. Then turns: "For me, it's my hair," Quentin explains, and then glances back at Eliot again. Just for a second. "Or—it _was_ my hair," Quentin is saying. "Before my friend Julia gave me a sort of. Medium-unwilling makeover," he admits, "before Alumni Day, last semester, but—it used to be, when I went home I was constantly terrified my high school principal was going to turn up behind me and start yelling at me about the dress code and then order me to get a haircut—"

—and Eliot, startled, laughs.

"Oh my God, was _that_ what that was about?"

"Uh, I mean." Quentin shifts. "Which 'that' are we talking about, exactly?"

"_Rubber band freakout 2016_," Eliot reminds him; and Quentin straightens, looking honestly comically indignant. 

"It was _not_ a freakout."

"It was _totally_ a freakout," Eliot says. "You made me do the rounds of the Cottage asking everyone I could find if they had one, and then—even though Edith _did_ have one—"

"Hers were those awful clear-plastic ones," Quentin reminds him. "They always break, and—_you_ told me they were bad for my hair—"

"_Yes_," Eliot says, "they _are_, but it was the last weekend before fall classes and everyone was trying to get their books, so there was no one else in the Cottage who had any, so then you _freaked out_, and I—"

He stops. His heart thumping against his ribs: once, twice. 

Remembering.

The rest of it: _You don't have to come up with me_, Quentin had told him, while they walked; so Eliot had said, _Don't be an idiot_, and rested his hand on the back of Quentin's neck. Eliot remembers that, too, doesn't he. And he remembers, clear and sharp, the way that Quentin's hands had trembled, as he pulled his hair back: in the parking lot, outside the hospital.

"Though, really," Eliot says, light, "maybe you're right—if it can be fixed with a stop at the CVS on the way from the train station, _is_ it a freakout?"

Quentin ducks his head; and Eliot squeezes hand under the table.

"So—where's home?" Rachel asks, after a second; "Not the Midwest"; and then she looks down at her plate to poke at her French toast.

"Um, well—I grew up in New Jersey." Quentin clears his throat. "But I don't really, uh. Have a reason to go back. So." He laughs, a little, looking pale and pinched and tired; and Eliot—remembers, all of a sudden, that it's nearly noon, and they'd turned off all of Quentin's alarms. It's not like anything Quentin takes is short-acting enough to actually make _this_ conversation any easier, but—Eliot turns enough to dig a hand into Quentin's coat pocket and fish out his pillbox, anyway. Pass it over. "Oh—sh—oot," Quentin says. Ears pink. "Thanks, El. I forgot."

"Yeah," Eliot says, then asks, "So—Mom": while Quentin's tipping a sip of coffee back so he can swallow them. "How long are you in town?"

"Mm—" She presses her fingertips to her mouth, chewing. She's probably not paying attention to Quentin's meds at all. "I was actually—I'm headed back after this," she says, and Eliot sets his fork down.

"Like." He shifts. "You mean, you're driving back to Indianapolis tonight?"

She looks down, her hair falling in front of her face, and then. Shrugs.

"Won't the traffic be even worse?" Quentin asks, mouth turning down. "How long did you say it took you this morning? And—the snow. It's getting pretty bad, isn't it?"

"Um—a while." Rachel huffs, a half a laugh. "It's fine, I'm used to driving in awful weather—honestly, it was probably worse on the west coast, no one knows how to drive in snow and there are never enough plows."

"Couldn't you stay in the city tonight?" Eliot asks, because Quentin's eyebrows are scrunching together like anxious little caterpillars: "Like—didn't Harry and Patricia Cooper move to Chicago?" When he'd been little, the Coopers had lived right at the edge of the bits of Whiteland that Eliot had, before he'd known any better, thought of as "the city": a white house with green trim and a piano under the front window. They'd had money, hadn't they? Eliot thinks he vaguely remembers a big house in a Christmas card, Scotch-taped to the nonmagnetic front of their ancient fridge. They probably have a guest room: when Eliot had been little, Mrs. Cooper had played the music during church services and given piano lessons between three and six on Tuesday afternoons and had been, once upon a time, the closest thing, Eliot thinks, that his mom had had to an actual friend.

"Oh." Rachel hunches her shoulders together. "I—no, I—well, I did make a hotel reservation, actually," she explains. "But—apparently they double-booked me."

She bends her head down over her plate, poking at the last of her French toast, and Eliot looks at Quentin, who's already looking at him.

"I think Eliot's couch maybe pulls out?" Quentin says, very hesitantly; and Eliot swallows.

"Yeah, it does." Eliot squeezes Quentin's hand. Chest tight. "Mom, I—the pullout is awful," he says, feeling—apologetic, embarrassed: Jesus, they'll have to roll with that fucking—fifteen-second illusion wall, won't they? "But—you shouldn't drive in this." He takes a breath. "They've already grounded all the planes, and it's supposed to get worse—our friend Margo was supposed to come visit, too, but no one's getting in or out of Chicago safely right now—you could stay," he manages, finally, "with us."

"Oh," Rachel says, blinking; as Quentin slides his fingers between Eliot's, under the table. "Well, I—"

"I'll definitely worry," Quentin adds, "if I know someone we care about is driving in this": and Eliot loves him so much, in that moment, that it takes every ounce of willpower he's got to not take him savagely in the Cozy Corner's second-to-last plastic booth.

"That's—that's awfully nice of you," Rachel says: with every ounce of gosh-shucks down-home toe-scuffling that Eliot's been trying to beat out of himself since high school; but Quentin just smiles at her, and—well. It'd take a stronger person than anyone _Eliot's_ related to, to resist that. "Okay," she says, "I—_thank_ you," and then shoves the last bite of her French toast in her mouth, chewing as her cheeks go red again, and she totally fails to look either of them in the eye. As soon as she swallows, she says, "I'll, um—just get the check, I—thank you," and then scrambles out of the booth, even though Quentin's still got a quarter of an omelette left and none of them have finished their coffee.

"Eliot," Quentin asks, after a second. "Is your mom _shy_?"

He sounds, honestly, sort of—_pleased_: Eliot looks at him, sharp; and Quentin catches his expression and laughs.

"Sorry! Sorry": Quentin shakes his head, grinning. "It's just—look at it from my point of view, okay? Your mom is _shy_. You're related to _a shy person_. I would—literally, have never called that, not in a million years."

"You're a dick," Eliot tells him, and Quentin nudges their shoulders together.

"You like it," Quentin murmurs, and Eliot, helpless, brushes their noses together.

"I do," he admits, rubbing a thumb along the seam at Quentin's knee; and Quentin closes his eyes.

Sighs.

"So, how solid is that illusion you threw up?" he asks, resting his head on Eliot's shoulder.

"I can make it a little better when we get home?" Eliot tucks Quentin's hair back. "But—yeah, not very. So—I'm going to have to extend that raincheck. I'm sorry."

"No, no, Jesus." Quentin kisses his cheek, and then straightens up. "It's not like it's your fault." He pokes at his omelette, then sets his fork down. "I _wouldn't_ want her to drive anywhere tonight—I'm just being. Incredibly petty, I know."

"No you're not." Eliot touches Quentin's spine. "This is—not exactly the vacation I promised you." He reaches for his coffee, as Quentin looks up at him, sharp.

"I didn't exactly fly to Chicago in the dead of winter just because I wanted to get some dick," he says, very low; and then, before Eliot can get himself together enough to respond to _that_ one, Rachel comes back and slides back into the booth across from them, setting down a handful of change on the table.

"Sorry!" she says, sounding flustered. "I'm so sorry, I didn't even—I'm sorry, are you finished?"

Quentin looks at Eliot. "We can have more coffee at home," he suggests; and Eliot takes a breath.

"Yeah, let's get back before the weather gets even worse," he says, and slides himself to his feet.

"Thank you for breakfast, Rachel," Quentin says; and then promptly gets so tangled up in his scarf that he more or less falls out of the booth.

When they turn onto Spaulding, Rachel wipes the snow out of her face and says, "If—if you really don't mind if I stay—"

"No, of course not," Quentin says. Trailing her over to—Christ—a blue Honda Fit, probably a decade old: hunkered down, dirty and battered, right there on Spaulding, in the fast-falling snow. "Can I help you carry anything?" Quentin asks: raising his voice, over the wind.

"I—um, no, I just have—I didn't bring that much stuff. Unless—"

She looks at Eliot, hesitant; and Eliot says, "Bring up whatever you've got, Mom—no one's going to want to come down later. Q, can you—I'd better dig out the sheets for the pullout," he lies, stepping back; and Quentin nods.

"Yeah, go on, I'll help Rachel with her bag."

So Eliot flees upstairs. 

Making up the pullout takes about a second and a half, with a spell; fixing the wall takes longer. The spell he tossed up earlier _looks_ all right, but touching it is like pushing his fingers into soup that's been arranged vertically. He shivers, shaking his hand off, then dispels it as quickly as he can: that Slovakian pocket-chamber spell that Kady brought back from Burning Man last year would be best, but he probably doesn't have enough extended-draw ration left this week to afford it, so—Chaucer-McDonnell division it is, anchored over the spell-reinforced tethers he uses to hang his screens. Less than ideal, but better than straight illusion, at least: the screens themselves give the wall some ballast, so that when he touches it, it feels—well, like a wall, mostly, if you don't push on it very hard. The illusion for the door is a little less stable, since he has to put it in the gap between the screens and the hallway wall, but the real problem with Chaucer-McDonnell—the reason they stopped using it in offices decades ago in favor of entire _volumes_ of magic that Eliot could do instead if he had three other casters and wanted to black out the block for the week—is that Chaucer-McDonnell isn't soundproof at all. Oh, well, Eliot tries to tell himself, what's one more night of not making Quentin scream: but it's not, he finds, particularly convincing.

Rachel and Quentin come back in while Eliot's brewing a second cup of fresh coffee: he hands the first one to Quentin, but Quentin just hands it back. "Rachel wanted to brush her teeth," Quentin says, quiet, studying Eliot's face. "You get the wall fixed?"

"Yeah." Eliot rubs at his forehead. "Q—I feel like I should apologize to you about fifty times, I didn't mean to surprise-inflict my mother on you, I just—": and then stops, when Quentin pushes up onto his toes to kiss him.

Press their foreheads together, hot.

"I sincerely hope that this morning wasn't a, like, one-time offer," Quentin murmurs; and Eliot snorts.

"Yeah, I mean, definitely, _that_ seems like something I'd do."

"Yeah." Quentin kisses him again. "So."

He settles back onto his heels: his bare feet lovely and pale, next to Eliot's purple socks. Eliot swallows, and folds his toes over Quentin's. "I love you," he says, quiet. "I can't remember if I've told you that lately."

"Well, it has been whole hours, probably," Quentin says, and then leans up to kiss him again. "Drink your coffee," he says. "Do you need a cigarette?"

"God, desperately." Eliot sighs. "I didn't even hang up my coat, but—my mom, I should make another cup of—"

"Even I can operate your knock-off Keurig," Quentin says, squeezing him around the waist. "Go on, take a break, I'll mom-wrangle until you come back": so Eliot nods and kisses him, then slings his coat back on and sticks his feet into the hideously be-tasseled pair of Uggs he keeps by his fire escape door, which he'd mostly bought to give Margo a chance to laugh at him until she was literally sick.

Once he's lit up and got the first blissful, blissful hit of nicotine he's had a chance at since the night before, he fumbles his phone out, and dials Margo. He'd lean back against the brick wall, but in weather like this the entire building is basically a single giant heatsink, as he'd learned to his cost the last time he'd tried that, in October. 

"Well, well, well," she says, the second she picks up. The leer is audible. "A full twenty-seven hours of radio silence, I think that's a new record, even for you two, so—other than the obvious, what's up in Chi-town?"

"Please don't call it that." Eliot rubs at his face. Takes a breath. "Still no flights?"

"Hon, I don't know what you think has changed since I texted you four hours ago," Margo says, "which—thanks for replying, asshole—but the weather definitely did not get _better_."

Eliot nods. Rubs at his forehead, thinking—thinking—

"Are you being weird?" Margo asks, after a second, very flat. "Is this—his present? Or—shit, is it _yours_?"

"No—God, no, I." He stops. Swallows. "I haven't—and I _love_ the clock. I mean—Christ, Margo, of course I do."

"Yeah," she says: resigned, almost. "I mean—ugh, you two are going to be unbearable forever, aren't you." She sighs, then says, "So—okay, fine, you got Quentin, you got spectacularly laid, you got a revoltingly romantic present, happy Solsti-yule-mas, hooray—so why do you sound like someone told you wine was cancelled, or something?"

And Eliot.

Closes his eyes.

"So, funny story," he says, after a second. Laughs, chest tight; and then scratches his eyebrow. "My mom showed up this morning."

Resounding silence.

"Wait," she says, after a second. "You don't mean... like, your actual mom?"

"What _else_ would I mean?"

"Oh," she says. Sounding—

He laughs. "Yeah, so, I mean, you think _you're_ surprised, imagine how _I_ feel," he says. Takes a long, not-soothing-enough drag. "I finally have—"

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Quentin through the window in the door: craning up for another pod for the coffee maker, as Rachel comes around the wall from the hall. Eliot turns, and goes over to huddle in the corner next to the door to 2A: they're gone until after New Year's, or he'd feel weird about it. "I finally have unfettered sexual access to my boyfriend for the first time in six months," he mutters, with his face turned in against the corner between 2A's door and the wall, "and my _mom_ turns up—no calls, no texts, just like—there, on my doorstep." He waves a hand, even though she can't see it. "And it's the middle of a fucking _blizzard_," Eliot says, "so now we _had_ to offer her the couch, and just, Jesus, Bambi, when are you getting here?"

"I—okay, yeah, that's. Pretty shitty," Margo says, and then hesitates before adding, "I—El, are you. _Okay_, with your mom?"

Eliot swallows. Straightening up.

"Yeah," he says, after a minute. "Yeah, I mean—we get along fine, she was never—it wasn't _her_, Margo." He sighs. "That's not the point," he says, because—it isn't. "The point is—_Quentin_, you know?" He takes a breath. "The point is just—every hour she's here is an hour I have to, you know, keep my hands off him, and I'm not going to get it back, and he's going to have to—go back to _Brakebills_, for another entire _semester_, and I—"

"Right," Margo says. "No, I. I am familiar, you know, with your intense and more or less perpetual need to rub your genitals all over each other." 

"That's a pretty crass way of putting it," Eliot mutters, but—she isn't wrong. Is she. "I just—any word, yet, on when your flight is getting rescheduled to?" he asks, more plaintively than he'd really like. "I'm not sure I can handle this alone." He tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder, so he can get at his cigarette more easily. Risks a little flare of magic to relight it, cupped between his chest and the wall, when it turns out it's gone out.

"Still no flights," Margo is saying. "But I'm considering going through the hedges... would you ride with a hedge traveler?"

"Alice is a hedge," he reminds her.

"Alice is a politically-motivated protest dropout, and also, not a traveler."

"No, I know," Eliot says, "but she's still my first-and-always data point, for what it means to be 'a hedge.' I don't buy into all your classist Brakebills bullshit, Ms. Hanson."

"That's funny," she says. "You're funny, over there pretending like you aren't the biggest snob out of all of us—you're a damn comedian, Waugh." She sighs. "So—is what you're saying basically, riding with a hedge traveler is probably like riding in a used Subaru: might not be stylish, but you know you'll get there fine?"

"I'm just saying," Eliot corrects, "that Alice could beat you up."

Margo snorts. "I'd like to see her try," she says, and then sighs again. "Email, still?" she asks. "I feel like I should ask her, at least."

"Yeah, they don't get SMS reception, in the Library, but she can't help you." He rubs at his face. "I did ask, over the summer."

"Of course you did."

"Well, yes," Eliot says. "Of course I did. And—then, at least, she said that other than Penny, she only really knows that one Library traveler—what's-his-nuts, the Australian."

"Ugh, _Gavin_?" Margo's voice is thick with loathing. "No way. His hands wander _and_ he mansplains. Not even for you would I hitch a ride with that dick."

"No," he agrees. "I wouldn't expect you to." 

She's quiet, for a moment. "So," she says, eventually; and he looks.

Up. 

"So," he agrees. Quiet. Inhaling: "So I'm stuck for a night in a studio apartment with my mom," he says, "and you're stuck for a night in your palatial loft in New York. Not a big deal."

"Maybe more than one night," she admits. "The forecast looks pretty dire, El—have you checked today?"

"No, I've decided to winter in denial, this year, I like it here." He finishes off his cigarette, then drops the butt into the can of sand stashed under the neighbors' very rusty and out-of-season charcoal grill. 

After a minute, Margo offers, "I spent last night—a _Saturday_ night, I'll note, on a _holiday weekend_—catching up on paperwork and drinking a second-rate Beaujolais in my pajamas."

"Wow," he says. "That's. A lot, Bambi."

"Yeah," she agrees, "it was. It was, like, Pure Distillation of Career Woman Cliché. This is who I'm turning into, with you so far away—I'm _boring_. I don't even know how to have _fun_ anymore." 

She sighs, and he ducks his head. Grinning, because—anyone less likely to succumb to being boring than Margo Hanson, he has yet to meet.

"By 'paperwork,' do you mean all those forms you have to fill out to explain to the liaison office how their $5,000 spy pen got eaten by a talking alligator during a romantic candle-lit dinner where it stared down your top and you shared the local delicacy of fermented papaya, or whatever, and then taught it the waltz, because asking for your pen back would've caused a diplomatic incident?"

She says, "Well, in this case it was a sloth—"; and Eliot starts laughing so hard he doesn't hear the end of the sentence.

"Fuck, I miss you," he says, when he thinks he can probably get the words out again.

"Oh, God, feelings?" she says, aghast. "Keep those to yourself, Waugh, I _know_ where they've been"; and he risks leaning against the wooden railing so that he can grin up crazily into the swirl of the sparkling white sky.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Stuck in his apartment with his mother in a snowstorm really underscores how blatantly Eliot's entire plans for the break had boiled down to _retrieve Quentin from airport; fuck_. He doesn't have a TV, and Quentin did bring his laptop and his Netflix subscription but what are they going to do, sit on the sofa with his mom re-watching _The Crown_ and dragging Philip? That was sort of. A just-them kind of thing, wasn't it. And the idea of Quentin reading to him while he sketches _with his mother in the room_ is, arguably, even more horrifying than the memory of her turning up while he was naked, covered in shaving cream, and bossing Quentin through the first half of what was pretty unquestionably going to be a fucking _spectacular_ blowjob, which Eliot's already doing his level best to block out; so, really, all told, the only good news is that apparently, the clock needs enough regular, manual, muggle-friendly disassembly before Quentin can actually see what's wrong with it that they at least have something to do all afternoon.

"Can you lift it on the—yeah," Quentin says, quiet, while Eliot shifts his hands, tilting it so Quentin can get at yet another tiny screw. 

"How did you end up switching to architecture?" Rachel asks. She's sitting half-turned in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, chin resting on the back of her hand, holding a half-finished glass of Gamay and watching them work on the clock on Eliot's desk, so Eliot can't even use his telekinesis. 

He shifts his hands on the sheet they've draped over the clock to protect the front windows: one of Eliot's old ones, dark blue. "I sort of—fell into it," Eliot says; and Quentin gives him a little look. "What?" Eliot says. Laughs. "I _did_, we can't all have—ten-year plans and vision boards, or whatever—"

"It's cute that you think I've ever had a plan of any kind, like, ever," Quentin counters, "unless Julia made it for me. But—Rachel, the part he's not telling you is where, at alumni day my first semester, I watched an award-winning sculptor, a high-fashion jeweler, two interior designers, and a world-famous architect come close to physical violence over which of them would get to hire him as an apprentice"; and Rachel shifts, looking—uncertain. Behind her, the kitchen window shivers in its frame: the snow rushing past it in a flickering white blur.

"Is that how you usually do it?" Rachel asks, hesitant. "Apprenticeship? At—your school?"

Quentin is frowning down at some fiddly little bit of the case, so Eliot says, "Yeah, more or less," not wanting him to lose focus. "The program isn't all that traditional."

"No," she says. "I—I mean, it—doesn't. Seem like it? I, I don't know anything about academia."

Eliot clears his throat. "Is the light okay?" he asks, because Quentin's squinting. Quentin tilts his head, uncertain; so Eliot pushes his weight up onto his elbow so he can stretch out over him to re-angle the desk lamp without dropping the clock. Look, Ma. With hands. As he sits back down again, Quentin tips his chin up, brushes a kiss against Eliot's cheek, distracted; and Eliot sinks back down into his chair, face burning. 

"Um." Eliot clears his throat. "I was going to say—oh, Professor Chakma. Right. He was on my committee, but he works mostly with the..."

He stops, trying to figure out how to translate "illusionists" into muggle. "Painting and sculpture students," Quentin supplies; and Eliot says, "Yeah, he primarily does—ink work?" he hazards, since Chakma's specialty is actually magical tattooing: apparently he and Fogg and—that emeritus professor, he can never remember her name, the pixie—had had an _incredibly_ regrettable faculty party back in 1987 that Eliot would actually _love_ to tell his mom about, for the chance to totally scandalize her without personally getting all the blowback, but—that's clearly never going to happen, so. Eliot takes a breath. "Anyway," he says, and then hesitates. Laughs, a little. "Actually, I sort of—forgot what I was going to say." He looks at Quentin, feeling—helpless. Strange.

"Well," Quentin says, slowly, "the dead horse that Chakma was always beating in my class with him, first-year, was that Brakebills was the last university in North America actually devoted to the idea of producing well-rounded generalists"; and Eliot nods.

"Yes. Right." Eliot glances back at Rachel. "That was it—that's sort of his _thing_. And I think that's—probably true, actually? I mean—I don't really know, Q, you're more familiar with academia than I am."

Quentin snorts. "Why, because Molly teaches at NYU?"

"Amongst other reasons," Eliot says. Laughs, again.

"Well..." Quentin tilts his head, thinking. "Chakma's _sort of_ right, maybe? Brakebills does like to think they're after generalists. Except we still track disciplines, don't we? Which they don't until third year in Mexico City, and not at all, at Calgary Ma—unicipal University."

His ears are turning pink, but honestly, Eliot thinks he's doing pretty well. "Well, _Calgary_," Eliot offers; and Quentin snorts.

"You are such a snob," he says, very fondly. 

Rachel is watching them, very carefully. "What do you mean by 'discipline'?" she asks; and Eliot shifts.

"Oh—it's sort of like—your general skillset," he improvises. "But—it's _very_ general. You start having one class specifically for your discipline in second year, and then you have two at least that are discipline-specific in third year, when you're working on your thesis."

"So your discipline was art?" Rachel asks, hesitant; then before he can answer, she asks, "What about you, Quentin?"; and Quentin looks up to meet Eliot's eyes. 

Eliot has no idea what to say. How _do_ you explain the connection between architecture and plant biology, without mentioning magic?

"It's more like—making things," Quentin says, finally. "Eliot and I are the same discipline, actually."

"Oh," she says, with a note in her voice that Eliot can't read.

Just then, the timer on Eliot's phone goes off. "Oh—that's the chicken," he says, deeply relieved: he'd started it marinading while Quentin was still explaining the clock to Rachel. _It was my—uh, it's been in my dad's attic for who knows how long_, Quentin had said, holding the sheet back so she could lean over to peer through the bottom window, then added, _it doesn't work_, like he needed to apologize. "Can we—pause," Eliot asks: trill, trill, trill. "or."

Quentin nods, helping Eliot lower the clock, slow and gentle. "Do you want me to finish dinner?" Quentin asks, tapping the timer off; and then tugs the sheet straight over the clock, and tucks his little ramekin of screws under the sheet's front corner.

Eliot passes Q his half-drunk glass of wine. Feeling— "Are you sure?" Eliot asks. "You don't have to—"

"I could help," Rachel offers. 

"No—come on, you're a guest," Eliot says. "Q—"

"I promise," Quentin says. "I'm not going to mess it up": exasperated, but smiling. "Not even I can ruin chicken and pasta."

"No, I know, I—." Eliot shifts. "Yeah," he says, finally, "that'd be great"; and—and then he sits back, crossing his knees, as Quentin squeezes his shoulder, and then heads over to the fridge.

When Eliot looks back over, Rachel is watching him, still: with that dark, intent expression of hers. 

"So," he says; and then. Reaches for his glass.

"My mom taught English," she says, out of nowhere; and Eliot—twitches, a little.

"I," he says, and then stops. 

"High school," Rachel says. "Up in—in Skokie." She ducks her head. "She always expected me to go to college," she says, and then hunches over her wine.

Eliot takes another sip of his, too, for lack of anything to say. It's probably—he's not sure what it says about them, that he's found out more about his mom's family in the past twenty-six seconds than he'd learned in the preceding twenty-six years. _Well_, he's thinking, _that makes one of us, at least_.

"Why'd you come back to Indianapolis?" he asks, instead.

"Um." Rachel pushes her hair back. "Oh, you know." She laughs: an odd, uncomfortable sound. "Seattle was getting really expensive. And—you know, there are. People. Out here. Who I'm, uh. Close to."

Eliot shifts, as Rachel glances over at Quentin, head bent over the pan of chicken, the pot of water next to him just starting to steam.

"El—iot." Rachel turns towards him, and scoots her chair closer. "I talked to—I'm so sorry, to've burst in on you like this, but—I didn't know how to contact you": voice low. "And—Kelly Findlay had posted on Facebook that she'd—run into you, in the city, back in October."

Eliot swallows. Right. Kelly: _that_ was her name. He'd recognized her, but—it'd turned into one of those incredibly awkward conversations with a person you knew you _should_ remember, and didn't. Kelly had been—a year ahead of him in high school? maybe two? Back then she'd been a fat, sweet-faced girl with mousy brown hair and incredible grades who never talked except in class or on debate team or whatever nerd thing she was into, back in those days, he hadn't really paid that much attention: she'd helped him with—polar coordinates, he thinks, math something, it was a long time ago; and then he'd run into her at the Starbucks at Lake and LaSalle while she was juggling a briefcase in a very well-tailored suit and a severe bun, grown up, settled into her body in a way he'd never seen; and he was wearing velvet trousers and considering the entropy trade-off between the traditional Chumash and Restructuralist approaches to sound isolation in open spaces while he waited for his red-eye; and then she had leaned towards him and said, _El...iot? It's—Eliot, isn't it?_; and they'd had like an eight-minute conversation about her job at Jenner & Block LLP and his at Hogar (heavily redacted) while they waited for their drinks; and Eliot had never actually managed to remember her name. 

"And—Kelly didn't have a current phone number for you either," Rachel is saying, "and—you're never on Facebook, so..." 

"No," Eliot says, after a second. "I—no one I know really uses Facebook," he admits; and Rachel ducks her head. He touches—the edge of his glass: "Do you really not have my number?" he asks, and then—laughs.

"I—I still have your 765 number," she says: very quietly, so quietly—so quietly that Quentin wouldn't hear; and Eliot, against his will, can feel every muscle in his body slowly and irresistibly tensing.

He takes a breath. Focusing on—a candle. Calling it up: pulling it into light in—inside of himself: the glow of—of a candle, of the candles last night: Quentin kneeling up in Eliot's lap and bending down to kiss him, with the blanket sliding off the crest of his shoulder, flickering creamy and golden in that light—

"Quentin knows where I'm from," Eliot says, finally, without dropping his voice at all; and then twists to pick up his phone. Scrolls through his contacts: but Rachel isn't in there. He swallows. "What's your number?" he asks. Throat dry.

"765-555-8219," she says; and he nods, and texts her: _This is Eliot_, and then adds her to his contacts as _Rachel Weiner_, and then—half-embarrassed, half-ashamed of himself—he adds, under "Nickname": _Mom_.

"Thanks," she says, when he looks up again.

"I never meant—for you not to have it," he says, feeling—awkward; and she says, "Me neither."

Very quietly.

He nods. Pushing his hair out of his face: "So." He laughs. Clears his throat. "If you're on Facebook, with—with all the kids I went to high school with, does that mean you can catch me up on gossip without me actually having to log on?"

She laughs. Shoulders relaxing: Eliot lets out a breath, and takes a sip of his wine. It's a nice wine, and the apartment is starting to smell—good, and homey: garlic from the chicken, that chewy smell of pasta cooking. "Well," Rachel says, "apparently Taylor's getting divorced."

Eliot shifts. "I didn't know he was married."

"Yes, it would've been—two or three years ago," she says. "They had the reception at the Alexander and Jenny's been unbearable about it ever since. His wife—or, well, ex-wife, I guess, Cara—her family's something big in liquor importing, apparently." She looks into her glass and says, "But I guess money doesn't count for everything"; and Eliot—

—Eliot's shoulders hurt. A sudden, painful-sharp wave of dizzying loneliness. He wants—Christ. _Quentin_. _Margo_; here, _now_: but—but Margo will be on a plane the instant the storm clears; and Quentin's less than twenty feet away, isn't he? Diligently nudging the linguine into the water, and setting the timer, while Rachel regards her wine and lets the mass of her hair fall over her face and Eliot can't—_talk_ to her, can he? He never has known how, and—and about _this_—

"Well," he says, finally. "Taylor's a resilient guy." It seems like the safest thing to say.

She nods. Not looking at him. Then she inhales, noisy, and straightens up, pushing her hair back. "Let's see," she says. "What else."

"Maybe you should stick with the _really_ scandalous stuff," he suggests. As lightly as he can. "Murders? Arson? Torrid affairs?"

"Patricia Newton's having another baby?" she offers.

"With her husband?"

"Well," Rachel says, "as far as I know..."

"Boring." He waves a hand. "Really, no murders? I thought surely there would've been a murder by now..."

She laughs. "I am very sad to report, then, that there have been no murders. I mean—that I know of."

"Yeah, what you really need to watch out for is tragic accidents. Nothing with a runaway thresher?"

She smiles, a very little. "Well, no, but." She stops. And then— "I did stop by the farm," she says, hesitant.

Ah. Eliot takes a long drink of wine. "And how are things going," he asks. "For the De la Cruzes?"

"They've—really turned it around, actually," she says, sounding—almost pleased. Maybe? She doesn't lower her voice, though, and Eliot's shoulders unclench, a little. "They went all-organic and started a CSA," she says, and that—on that, she sounds—at the very edge of laughter, almost. Because—

"You're kidding," he says, after a second; and then she _does_ start laughing, shaking her head. 

"I'm not kidding at all," she says, cheeks going pink under her freckles, with her eyes crinkling up at the corners: that huge, lovely smile that he'd—he'd forgotten, almost. What it looks like, when she laughs. "They do school tours," she's explaining. "They have _open days_. I had coffee with Elena last Thursday, and she said that they're doing eggs and vegetables, and hoping to add in cheese and raw milk this coming year—all very small-scale, but—Craig must be _spinning in his grave_": laughing so hard that tears are starting to run down her cheeks. Eliot can feel himself grinning, too: God, she's right: just—_everything about that_.

"Can I be nosy?" Quentin asks, coming over with the wine: he tops them both up, and then leans, very cautiously, against Eliot's side. Eliot wants, desperately, to pull him into his lap, but settles for sliding an arm around his waist, instead.

"The De la Cruzes are the people who bought the farm after we sold it," Eliot explains. Looking up. "We'd never—there was a lot of resistance to the whole—local-artisan-whatever movement—you know, more a, 'Well, if _my_ parents did it this way and _their_ parents did it this way'—"

"Never mind that we were constantly just on the verge of going under," Rachel adds; and Eliot salutes her: "Never mind," he says, to Quentin, "that we were constantly just on the verge of going under—"

"_Or_ that the house was in desperate need of repair—"

"_All_ the windows leaked—"

"_Or_ that half the time we could barely pay the property taxes, _or_ that Eliot's college fund topped out at eight thousand dollars, after his grandpa died in 1996, and only went down, after that—the important thing to understand," Rachel is saying, as Eliot tips up his glass; "is that Craig," she says, "was just an all-around first-rate self-centered egotistical _cock_": and Eliot chokes on his wine.

Sputters.

Quentin hands Eliot the tea towel he'd tucked into the waistband of his jeans. And Eliot—mops at his mouth, his—his tie, _fuck_, did he—

"Wow," Quentin says, "he sure sounds like a keeper," totally deadpan; and Rachel—

—throws her head back and laughs.

Eliot's heart thumps: once. Twice. He looks up at Quentin, feeling—mute, helpless, oddly at sea: and as he watches, Quentin's smile softens. Looking down at Eliot: touching his eyebrow, once, very gently, before he bends down to kiss Eliot's cheek. 

"It's almost ready," Quentin murmurs. "Can you get the bowls down for me?"; so Eliot gets up to get the bowls down, while Quentin drains the pasta.

It's. Nice, Eliot is thinking: it's _nice_. It should be—nice, shouldn't it? Like. Validating, or something. It should feel—nice the way that Quentin asking Rachel to grab some forks feels nice, so that her back is turned and Eliot doesn't have to try too hard to pretend he's lighting the candles with his just-for-show Zippo. And—_dinner_ is nice, isn't it? The wine is nice, and the food is nice, and—and having Rachel there is nice, isn't it? In an odd, off-balance way: some sort of long-repressed mammalian pleasure: this is nice, he tells himself, this _should_ be nice; and—it _is_ nice, as long as doesn't think too hard about the surreality of his mom explaining to his boyfriend that her husband was a terrible human being, or swearing while she did it. The chicken came out great. And with the candles—well, it looks like—a real person's table, a _proper_ dinner table: even if, if Eliot had his way, the napkins wouldn't be folded-up paper towels, and that last lush ranunculus would be less than a week old, and a lot better at holding itself together. 

The night howls, outside the windows. Everyone's glasses are running low, plates empty: "Is the weather in the Midwest usually like this?" Quentin asks, when Eliot gets up to open a third bottle.

"Well, the traditional answer there is: 'oh, no, this is nothing, it's usually much worse,'" Rachel says, "oh—thanks, but maybe just a little?" Eliot nods, and only gives her half a glass: he has no such reservations, for him or Quentin. "But actually—no, this is awful." She laughs. "Not that it's not usually _bitterly_ cold, but all the planes being grounded—that actually is pretty unusual."

"There was that early storm the fall after Marianne died," Eliot offers, nudging his chair to the side, so he can bump his knee against Quentin's. Subtle. Nothing big.

"Mm. But I don't think that hit here as hard as it hit us," Rachel says. Her voice—slowing, slightly. Brow furrowing, as she tilts her head to the side, pulling all her hair over her shoulder: twisting it, twice, right-handed, into a thick, dark rope. "I've always wondered why storms do that," she is saying. Voice pensive. "Barely brush the cities, when they're battering the plains."

Quentin turns his chair, slightly, its feet scraping on the linoleum; then pushes himself over a little further, so he can tuck himself up against Eliot's side—and what's Eliot going to do, _not_ hug him? Because that would be crazy. "There's this thing called the urban heat island," Quentin says. "Basically—cities retain and produce heat, and they have less plant life to dissipate it."

Eliot brushes that dumb flip of hair back, feeling—well. Frankly: enchanted. "Where do you learn these things?" 

"Wikipedia," Quentin explains, leaning on his forearms on the table, and before Eliot can succumb to the _frantically appealing absurdity_ that is, perpetually, Quentin Coldwater—

"There was this one storm," Rachel is saying, very slowly; and then.

She stops.

Eliot. Tries not to fidget. "Before I remember?" he asks. "Like all the really bad ones?" 

Light. Light. He sips his wine.

"No," she says. "Well—yes. Before you were born, actually. Not—not in Whiteland. When I still lived in Chicago, actually. It would've been—"

She stops again; and after a second, Eliot drags his eyes up from his glass and the table and Quentin's solid, furry forearms, to look—

—to look at his mother, staring into the candles: with an odd, alien, achingly familiar expression, that he has never understood.

"It was—it must've been on December 24th, actually," she says. Still in that odd, half-suspended slow voice: "Or—the storm, the real storm, must've started later. But the part I remember best—I remember how _cold_ it was. Before the snow."

"That's the way it is a lot of the time, I think," Quentin says, quiet; and Rachel nods.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, I know."

She falls silent again. Her fingers just resting on the edge of Eliot's butcher-block table.

"It was my junior year of high school," she says. She's still not looking at them. "And—our temple had just moved." And her voice— "Everything," Rachel says, "still smelled like paint."

Her voice, Eliot is thinking, is like—that stuff Sunderland had had them brew in PA, first year: that stuff that had felt like olive oil and looked like blackberry jam and been useful for stabilizing ward-anchors and also, as it turned out, cleaning Cointreau off of elaborately-worked wood trim without damaging the varnish: Rachel's voice is that same sort of low, and silky, and _still_. It has a weight to it, an inertia, that Eliot can't explain and finds almost impossible to resist: he feels _caught_—trapped, almost, in the silences between her speaking. He can't, he is realizing, turn away. 

"There was a flood," Rachel says. Very low. She's still not looking at them: Eliot watches her watching the candles from inside a sudden, inexplicable surge of vertigo: all the hairs on the back of his neck prickling, on his arms; on Quentin's arms, too, Eliot realizes, when he looks down. I've been here before, he is thinking, with the strange, inexplicable certainty that always comes with déjà vu: even though he knows, very emphatically, that he hasn't.

"It was cold—_unbelievably_ cold," Rachel is saying. "I remember—our phone ringing, early, probably—six or seven in the morning. Still dark. And—it was the weekend, too, I think. And I remember thinking—_oh, that's for me_. So I got up and got dressed, not even—all the way awake, really: just—I remember putting on layer after layer, socks and jeans and a shirt and a sweater and then I was still cold so I put on my jacket, too, inside, still thinking the phone was for me. And then I came downstairs, and—and it wasn't for me at all. It had been the Rosenbaums, calling my parents, because all the pipes had burst and flooded our brand-new temple and the rabbi had called Mrs. Cherkas and Mrs. Cherkas had called the Rosenbaums, and could we help?"

She sounds—so far away. Sitting—maybe four feet away from him, watching the nothing that lives at the heart of his candles. After a long, silent moment, Quentin shifts, only just: to tuck his hand into the crook of Eliot's elbow. 

Eliot swallows. Folding his fingers over Quentin's. 

Quentin asks, "Was anyone hurt?" Quiet.

Rachel's eyebrows lift, as she breathes in: looking away, at last, and Eliot can move again. Lean back in his chair, breathing out. 

"No," Rachel says, and then gives an awkward, painfully familiar little laugh. "No, no one was in the building—it might've been better if they had been. As it was, it flooded the entire basement, before anyone noticed—because water was coming out of the walls, and pouring onto the street. And—and it was Christmas Eve." She laughs, and then ducks her head. "My mom, half the people we knew, spent _all morning_ on a phone tree calling plumbers while my dad just got madder and madder that no one was picking up, until—until we were like, 'Dad, of course they're not picking up, it's Christmas': so then he yelled at us for not telling him sooner, and then he yelled at the Yellow Pages for not having a separate section for Jewish plumbers, because the only one he knew personally was Eddie Garfield and the Garfields always went to Miami when their kids were off for the holidays; and—and all of us couldn't stop—_laughing_," she says: as her breath catches. "I mean—God": she laughs again: scratchy. "It _was_ awful, really, there was—_so_ much damage, but—we never could take him seriously when he yelled. He just seemed." Her mouth: pulling down, as she says, "—so _silly_."

Quentin shifts. Not—not looking up, not looking at—at Eliot, but Eliot—

"Does anyone want coffee or anything?" Turning, helplessly, to look down at Quentin. "Or—tea, maybe, I've got—uh, chamomile, and that—"

"I'm okay," Quentin says, quiet. 

"—weird lemongrass stuff of—um." 

Eliot stops. Recentering—

"Maybe we should relocate to the sofa," he says, after a second; then remembers that the pull-out is actually—pulled out, so that his mom would have a bed. "Or," he says; and then stops.

"Smoke break?" Quentin suggests; and then pushes up to his feet and turns on the overhead light in the kitchen.

There. His table. Just as he left it: paper towels for napkins, dirty pasta bowls—normal. See?

"El," Quentin says, nudging him.

So Eliot takes the gift as offered, and goes outside to smoke, while Quentin is clearing plates into the sink— "Don't you dare wash those," Eliot calls, rapping on the window; and Quentin gives him the finger, but also doesn't wash the dishes—while Eliot tries to sort out the mangled mess of his head. Beyond the rail of the fire escape, the snow falls in an endless, all-absorbing curtain of white.

When he comes back inside his face is burning from the cold, but—

"Where's Rachel?" he asks, reaching for a tea towel.

"Mm. Bathroom. Went to get ready for bed." Quentin's poking at the clock again, but he comes over when Eliot turns on the water. 

"Isn't it, like, eight-thirty?"

"Yeah, but—this much snow makes me sleepy, too," Quentin says; then tilts his head. "I mean, also—we got through two and a half bottles of wine, and—I don't think she drinks much."

Eliot uses the back of the dish brush to knock away a renegade tendril of linguine. "No," he agrees, scrubbing. "She never did."

Quentin nods, and holds out the towel to accept the bowl, once it's rinsed.

It's warm inside. The landlord always keeps the radiator so high that half the time, if Eliot's home during daylight, he has to crack a window just so he won't suffocate. The apartment is warm, and the water is warm, and Quentin is warm next to him and slowly, Eliot's fingers are thawing, as they wash the dishes and the blood stings its way back into his face.

"I should probably start keeping a jacket by the back door," Eliot says. "For. Urgent outings."

"Or a cape," Quentin suggests.

Eliot looks at him. "A cape? Who am I, Batman?"

"Hm." Quentin tilts his head, looking way too interested in that as an idea; so Eliot gives him a warning look that just makes Quentin laugh. "No, I meant—I was thinking about that woman."

"What woman?"

"You know." Quentin flips the bowl over to dry the underside. "In the clock."

Eliot frowns, thinking. "With a cape?"

"Yeah." Quentin shrugs. "It made me think of you, that's all. It's all—I don't know. Stylish and stuff."

"Baby," Eliot says, helpless with adoration; and Quentin glares at him. The overall effect is, as usual, not wholly unlike being glared at by a very sleepy and affectionate labrador retriever puppy, but Eliot thinks he probably shouldn't say that.

"Fine, wear a jacket," Quentin mutters. "Be—basic, or whatever": and Eliot is very, very glad that he's still got a bunch of dishes to wash because if he didn't—well, he'd probably do something that'd be _profoundly_ inadvisable in the kitchen.

"Thank you, I think I _will_ be basic," Eliot says, instead. "It'll require some practice, so I think I should probably get started immediately—"

"Oh, shut up," Quentin says, laughing, and flicks the end of his towel up at him, so Eliot bends down to steal a kiss.

It's—nice. It's a nice kiss. It's warm, and Eliot can still feel it, after he pulls back: that warm little taste of Quentin that he's probably 99% imagining, when he licks the corner of his lips. 

Still warm, though, at least.

"Um." Quentin says, quiet: Eliot jumps: halfway through rinsing the pasta pot.

"Uh—sorry." Shifting his weight. "Zoned out, sort of."

"Yeah," Quentin agrees. "I could tell."

"Sorry," Eliot repeats.

"No, it's okay," Quentin says, then takes a breath. "But—how're you doing? Really."

Eliot hesitates. Sighs; then turns the faucet off, then reaches past Quentin to set the pot in the dish drainer. He takes Quentin's towel away with some thought of hanging it up, but Quentin reaches up to rest his hand on Eliot's cheek. Holding him, with that little light touch: perfectly suspended. Still.

(Those eyes.)

Eliot folds his hand around Quentin's wrist. Turns, just a little, to kiss his palm. 

"I'm okay," Eliot says. Quiet.

Quentin's mouth twists. "Okay like actually-okay?" he asks. "Or"; and Eliot sighs again, then bends down to kiss him, once, quick, in the glare of the kitchen's ugly overhead lights. 

"Actually-okay, I think, mostly." Eliot swallows. Kisses him again. "It's not—"

He stops; and Quentin slides his arms up over Eliot's shoulders. Folding his hands together at the back of Eliot's neck. "It's not..." he prompts. Gentle: and Eliot.

Sighs.

"I don't know. This has been," he admits, "a very weird day."

"Yeah," Quentin agrees; and Eliot nods.

"I'm glad you're with me, though," he says, very quietly; and Quentin makes a tiny, indescribably yearning little noise; and leans up for another kiss.

"I'm, uh—done in the bathroom," Rachel says, and Eliot jerks back; then hates himself for it; but still feels like it'd be weird to just lean back in.

"Thanks, Rachel," Quentin says, and takes Eliot's hand. "Come on, you: teeth, face—your under-eye circles have under-eye circles": pulling him along.

"They do not," Eliot protests, which is a) untrue but b) does keep his brain occupied enough that Quentin manages to get him into the bathroom and behind a closed door without Eliot having a chance to get weird about it, which—

—which was probably, Eliot is realizing, the idea.

Quentin leans back against the sink. Looks at him. Up, then down.

"What?" Eliot asks; and Quentin huffs. Shakes his head.

"Maybe I just like looking at you," he says, and then turns around, to get Eliot's bottle of face wash out of the medicine cabinet.

Eliot swallows. Sidling up behind him, tucking his fingertips into the front pockets of Quentin's jeans. It makes Quentin turn pink in the mirror, which Eliot likes: almost as much as he likes the warm, solid space of Quentin's body, pressed up against his belly and his thighs and his chest.

"You're a bad man," Quentin tells him, and reaches out to turn on the faucet. "A bad, no-good—hey, I didn't say _stop_": so Eliot presses back up against him and presses his mouth down against Quentin's shoulder, muffling a laugh. "Hmm." Eliot watches him fiddle with the water: full hot, then turning it colder when the faucet gushes out steam. "I know it was like 30 seconds ago, but I sort of forgot your mom was just in here," Quentin says. Laughing, a little: shaking his head. Eliot kisses the side of his neck again, then pulls away to get a clean washcloth out of the cupboard, while Quentin is bending over to splash water up on his face. 

Okay. Evening ablutions, he can manage. So—washcloth, toothbrush— 

"Eyeliner," Quentin reminds him; and Eliot shifts.

"I'll have you know I woke up like this," he says, opening the medicine cabinet again for his makeup remover; and Quentin snickers, sudsing up his hands. "I'm disappointed by your lack of faith in me," Eliot says, wetting a cotton pad. Holds it over one eye, then starts wiping, very gently: Quentin always just scrubs face wash all over his cheeks like an animal—he'd use soap if Eliot'd let him—but even _with_ magic, Eliot's skin just won't tolerate that kind of abuse. 

"Given my patchy mental health history," Quentin says, "you probably should be worried if I _did_ believe you, especially given that this morning I could hear you cursing at the mirror all the way from the kitchen, while I was telling your mom all about my flight and trying to pretend she'd never seen me in a stripper robe while sporting a semi."

"God," Eliot mutters.

"Blocked it out?" Quentin asks.

"_Trying_ to." Eliot shifts. "That's not—it's not a stripper robe."

"Yeah," Quentin says, very lovingly, "it's a very classy and expensive stripper robe, but—it's still a stripper robe, sweetheart." 

Eliot ducks his head. "Thanks," he says, quiet; and Quentin looks up, water dripping off his chin into the sink.

"For... wearing the stripper robe?"

"For helping with my mom." Eliot says, and then sighs. "No, I mean—I know, I _know_": because Quentin's eyebrows are going mountaineering, which—okay, fair, it's not like _that_ isn't a conversation they had about ten thousand times in the other direction, last year— "I mean—just. I appreciate it, okay?" Eliot turns the cotton pad over so he can work on his other eye.

"Eliot," Quentin says, "remember how annoyed you got, when I kept telling you you should leave, during finals last fall?"

Eliot swallows. He does remember that. He remembers—wanting to _strangle_ Quentin; and also, very desperately, wanting to—make it all be okay. 

"I'm not telling you to leave," Eliot says, quiet.

"Uh, I mean—_good_," Quentin says; and then huffs, splashing water up over the underside of his jaw. "Just. You get that—I want to be here, right?"

"Yeah," Eliot says, quiet. "I know." Because. Because he had wanted to be there, too.

"Like, I want to be here helping you contend with your whole." Quentin takes a breath. "_All_ the hard stuff, all the _family_ stuff—"

"Yeah. I know, baby." That's the mascara and eyeliner, at least: Eliot tosses the pad in the trash can under the sink. "I mean—thank you for wanting to be here," he explains, "with me."

Quentin doesn't say anything, for a second. "Thank you for letting me," he says, finally: voice low, a warm, still, solid little presence against Eliot's right side, lovely face dripping while he watches Eliot in the mirror, and Eliot—Eliot can't—he just—

He looks up at the ceiling, for a second. Blinking. "And—I should definitely also be thanking you," he says, finally, looking back: "for being so _good_ at it, for being—so fucking _charming_ all the time": Quentin's lovely face, in their mirror. "God, I think the two of us would've just turned into stone tablets that just said 'TOO AWKWARD TO LIVE'," Eliot says, "if you hadn't been there."

Quentin shifts his weight, then bends to rinse his face one last time before turning off the water. "I feel like I've stepped into the Mirror Universe," he says, light; and Eliot—considers teasing him, for about a quarter of a second, before he decides that that'd be the world's dumbest way of leaning into how he now knows what that means. "If _I'm_ charming, and _you're_ awkward," Quentin is saying, "what brave new world do you think tomorrow will bring?" He reaches for Eliot's towel, since they only have two and they'd had to give Rachel one.

"Margo, I hope," Eliot says; and Quentin looks up at him, nose scrunching up as he smiles.

"What is _she_ in the Mirror Universe, d'you think?"

Quentin is patting his face dry instead of rubbing: good boy. Eliot resists the urge to press him up against the door and give him a reward for finally figuring out how to use a towel like a grown-up, but it's not like he's going to fuck Quentin with his mom in the building, whether or not the bathroom door locks. "Lousy in a fight," Eliot suggests.

"Avoids conflict," Quentin agrees, reaching around Eliot for the toothpaste.

"Not hot," Eliot adds, and turns the water back on while Quentin starts giggling again. "What?"

"Everyone in the Mirror Universe is always hotter," Quentin explains frothily—_ethweewa i tha miwwow uniwah i awaf hoher_—around his toothbrush; to which Eliot says, "Blasphemy, I refuse to believe it," while he's lathering up the face wash in his hands. Jaw, first: careful around the pink skin that Quentin had patched over Eliot's shaving cut, that morning.

Quentin hums, then bends to spit toothpaste into the sink. "What, that Mirror Universe Margo is hotter?" he says. "I think she'd be insulted."

"I was going to say that I didn't believe there was another universe where _any_ of us were hotter": though there _could_ be, if there's a universe out there where Quentin lets them fix his wardrobe—anyway. Eliot runs his fingers under the water to get the lather looser, then starts working on his forehead. "But you're right," he concedes, rather than get into it with Quentin _again_ about those terrible hoodies, or his slightly too-big jeans, or the way he still only owns those total-overkill snow boots and his Converse and a single pair of black oxfords, which he dons more or less at random because someone once told them they dress up an outfit. "If anyone could manage implausibly being hotter, Margo could," Eliot says, instead. "She's probably hotter in every universe than she is in the one next to it."

"Ooh, a _hotness paradox_," Quentin says, "I like it," indeed sounding very pleased.

"I thought you might," Eliot says, and then works the lather under his jaw. Around his hairline. Through his eyebrows and down over the sides of his nose, which is _still_ where he likes to break out, because he's twenty-six and adolescence still can't just—fucking _take a hike_, can it—

"El," Quentin says, quiet.

"Mm?" 

Q's voice has gone all serious again. Eliot squints at him in the mirror: that earnest little face. 

"So," Quentin says; then bites his lip. Nudges his toes against the back of Eliot's heel: scraping his socks on Eliot's socks. "_Are_ you okay? Really."

Eliot ducks down. Rinsing off. 

It's a serious question, is the thing. And Eliot _knows_ Quentin means it, and also that—that they have a deal, don't they? And if _Quentin_ isn't allowed to dodge that question—

"I don't know," Eliot admits, finally. He turns the water off, and Quentin hands him the towel, then slips his arm around Eliot's waist. Just resting. 

"Can I help?" Quentin asks; and Eliot swallows.

"Just you being here helps," he says. Throat tight, as he wraps his arms around Quentin's shoulders. Tucking that damp little flip of hair back. "It's just for a night, right?" Eliot pets through the soft ends of his hair. "I mean—we got through dinner, how bad can it be? We'll get up in the morning, I'll feed her pancakes, she'll—drive home while no one's on the roads—"

"...are we still not checking the weather forecast?" 

"—we are not—"

"Yeah, okay." Quentin knots his fingers together in the small of Eliot's back. "So she'll go home in the morning," Quentin agrees; and Eliot says, "—so, yeah, she'll go home in the morning"; and then looks at him.

Meets his eyes.

It's a mistake. Neither of them can keep it back, can they? And Eliot is fucking terrible at laughing quietly, and Quentin basically always sounds like a dying donkey, so Eliot kisses him mostly as—self-defense, yes, exactly—_minty_.

"Mm—El—"

"Shh, shh—"

"_You_ shush—": so Eliot kisses him again, again; while Quentin knots his hands up in the back of Eliot's third-favorite vest pulling like he even _could_ drag him any closer—until Eliot pulls back just enough to press their damp foreheads together. 

Closes his eyes.

"Where do you want to put the clock?" Eliot asks, after a minute. "Once you've fixed it."

Quentin hums. "In the hallway, maybe? By the front door? It's just about the only bare wall we've got. Other than—"

"—yes, yes, other than the one that isn't exactly made out of drywall." Eliot pulls back. Looking down at him. "We can move stuff around," he points out. "We're fucking—_magicians_": dropping his voice. "It's not like we can't patch a hole in the wall."

"It's true"; Quentin agrees. "Do you have anything you _want_ to move?

Eliot sighs. "God, I don't know. I don't know _what_ I want."

Quentin hums, a little. Arms tightening around Eliot's waist.

"Except," Eliot whispers, and when Quentin tips his chin up, they press their faces together.

Their chests.

"It'll be okay," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot—

"Yeah," he says, finally. "It's just—"

His tight throat. The twisty, unsteady squelch of his heart.

"I haven't even talked to her in—five years, probably?" he admits. "Maybe six? And now..."

After a second, Quentin shifts. "Yeah."

"I had _plans_, Q," Eliot explains. He can't, quite keep the whine out of his voice; and Quentin—God. _Warm_, he's so _warm_: just snuggling in closer, kissing the hollow of Eliot's throat. "I had plans," Eliot explains. "For—all this stuff I wanted to. To share with you."

"I always do like your plans," Quentin says, soft. Not pulling away: Eliot kisses his forehead, feeling— "Will they keep?" Quentin asks.

Eliot swallows. Swallows. "Yeah," he says, finally. Swallows, again. "They'll keep." He pulls back, a little: looking down at Q's face. "Did you even bring PJs?"

Quentin turns a very appealing sort of a watermelon color. "What would you do if I said no?"

"Make you wear mine with the hems folded up, it'd be adorable," Eliot says, immediately; and Quentin rolls his eyes and says, "Well, lucky for me, I _did_ bring PJs, and I am going to go put them on, right now"; and then he sidles back out of the bathroom, into the closet that Eliot has instead of an actual hallway.

Eliot, left behind, brushes his teeth.

With the lights out and the snow outside, the apartment feels even smaller than usual. Cramped, cluttered: Eliot bumps his shoulder against the bookshelves, trying to round the corner of the hallway. When he finally finds the edge of the illusion door, he can't remember which side he put the knob on, so it takes him a couple tries to get it open, but then—

—then he's in his room. With Quentin. In private, nearly.

He shuts the door.

He strips down and puts on the pajama bottoms he'd snagged from his closet—purple, pinstripes, _very_ luxe cotton, so soft it feels like silk, nearly. The shirt, he keeps folded and sets on the console table by his mirror, for lack of anywhere better to put it. Quentin's already under the covers, lying on his back with the duvet pulled up to his ribs, arm folded up over his head: hamster-wheeling about something, obviously. Eliot slides in next to him, then murmurs, "Should I turn on the light?"

"No, it's okay." Quentin rubs at his forehead, shadowy. "Sorry."

"What for?" Eliot curls up close, wrapping an arm around him. "C'mon. Tell Daddy what's wrong."

"Ugh, that is—how soundproof is that wall?"

"Not soundproof enough for anything interesting," Eliot admits. "But—she probably won't hear us if we're just talking."

"Good, then I can tell you that that one is—probably legitimately even more fucked up than usual," Quentin says, rolling up onto his side. "Given the context."

Eliot swallows. Shrugs, a little. "Does that mean I should stop?"

Quentin ducks his head, and doesn't answer. Resting, very gently, his fingertips against Eliot's chest.

Eliot rubs at the crest of his shoulder. "Come on," he says, quiet. "It's not like I haven't been dumping my shit on you since dawn, basically"; and Quentin sighs.

"El," he says, and then stops. 

Eliot lets him. Sometimes—the thing about Quentin is knowing when not to push, and when it's just what he needs: it's a fucking—_nightmare_ to figure out, honestly; but two years three months in and Eliot thinks he's just starting to get the hang of things. Not showering: push. Not eating: variable, but generally—push for breakfast, offer dinner. Lunch, ignorable. Figuring out how to say something to Eliot—

"Is there a reason you didn't tell me your mom was Jewish?" Quentin asks, very quietly; and Eliot.

Shifts.

Quentin's PJs are flannel. He'll be too hot in the night, probably. Peel them off in his sleep, then cuddle up to Eliot in about nineteen different ways that're all _extremely_ NC-17—

"My mom's not Jewish," Eliot says, finally; and Quentin cards his fingers through Eliot's chest hair. Not saying anything. 

"I know you don't like to talk about—that stuff," Quentin says. Voice scratchy. "I just mean—is it. You've said—other things, about—I mean, I just—I don't know if you were worried that—that I'd—be shitty to her, or—"

"Q—_no_." Eliot wraps his arm around him, tight. "No, baby, I'd never—"

"—or if you were worried that she'd be upset that I wasn't," Quentin finishes. All in a rush.

And—oh. Oh, Eliot is thinking, tucking his whole warm little huddle of a self in against Eliot's body: oh, _Quentin_.

"Quentin," Eliot says, "if I had decided to break the habit of a lifetime, and give any fucks whatsoever about what my mother was thinking": as steadily as he can. "I definitely still would not have worried about her caring whether or not you were _Jewish_."

Against him, Quentin is still. Pressing his face down, warm and scratchy, against Eliot's throat. "God," he says, thick; and Eliot laughs.

"Under the circumstances," he says; and then.

Stops.

"I'm sorry," Quentin whispers, after a minute.

"Why?" Eliot asks, as Quentin tips his face up. Wriggling closer: "I'm not," Eliot says; and almost means it, he finds.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/storywide)

[_Are_ you okay? Really.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/storywide)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An aside: 99.3% of what happens in this story is fiction, but here's the 0.7%: [early in the morning on December 24, 1989, during a particularly bitter cold snap, the pipes burst, at Temple Beth Israel's new location on Dempster Street, in Skokie, IL](http://anonym.to?https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-01-29-9303173495-story.html). The water flooded the entire basement, and in fact rose so high that it did, in fact, start gushing out of the walls of the building and onto the street, where a police officer saw it and first contacted the rabbi to raise the alarm. No one was hurt, but the flood destroyed a lot of the temple's documents and records, as well as a number of deeply valuable and important religious objects, including five historic Torahs. (A note: the damage to the Torahs in particular was unquestionably a tragedy; and, while Rachel's upbringing was not hugely religious, for the members of her community who were, this would have been a very, _very_ big deal.)
> 
> So. Rachel's story about a flood in a Skokie reform temple on Christmas Eve in the late '80s is—to that extent—completely true. (IIRC, the detail about the space still smelling like paint is true, too—I _think_ I got it from an article I read while I was doing research, but now I can't find it so I'm not sure.) All other details about the flood, and what happened after the flood, and people's reactions to the flood (e.g. the plumber-finding phone tree), are made up. I had already planned out the sort of—general thrust of that conversation before I found out about this incident (as in, I had planned: Rachel tells a story about Weather In Her Past, with specific references to both her religious upbringing and her family; Eliot has a lot of profoundly mixed-up and complicated feelings about—all of that), but when I was researching Beth Israel as a probable synagogue for Rachel's family and I found out about this particular flood, with that particular timing, in this particular reform congregation, in this particular Chicago suburb, all my hair stood on end. It was actually the deciding factor in me using Beth Israel as the background reference for Rachel's synagogue instead of any other reform congregation in Skokie, and it let me do a lot in this chapter that was—uh, particularly useful, let's say. 
> 
> Anyway, TL;DR: while this story is fiction and the people in it are fiction and even the _weather_ in it is, in large part, total fiction: sometimes history provides you with better narrative construction than anything you could actually have thought to make up.


	3. togetherness.

### 3\. togetherness.

#### Monday, December 25, 2017

Eliot jerks awake, heart racing, convinced he's late for the meeting with the Head Librarian—and then remembers that it's a holiday, and also, when he checks his phone, only about three forty-five in the morning. He's—overheating, is part of the problem: Quentin is lying more or less on top of him, the duvet pulled up to his ears, with his hand casually tucked (predictably) down the side of Eliot's PJ bottoms so he can (also predictably) more comfortably keep hold of Eliot's ass: he is (of course) naked and (most predictably of all) drooling onto Eliot's shoulder. Eliot stares up at the ceiling for as long as he can stand it and then uses his telekinesis to nudge the window open, just a crack, for a sharp-cold stream of frigid air.

Quentin hums, a little, shifting, and turns his hand: Eliot really has to scramble to redirect him, because—because Eliot has, actually, what he would consider a pretty fair grasp on his self-control, but, well. He hasn't got any illusions about where Quentin sleep-jerking him off with his mom _more or less in the same room_ is likely to end.

He winds up nudging Quentin over onto his side and wrapping himself around Q's back, since Quentin usually sleeps better in that position anyway; and then all that needs to happen is that Eliot just has to keep resisting the urge to rub one out against his ass, and—well. It's not like Eliot was going to fall asleep again anyway.

He's—not wrong, about that. It's one thing to remind the endless churning mill of his thoughts that lying in bed worrying about this week didn't do any good in April and it didn't do any good in July and it didn't do any good in October or November or at any point in the 23 days of December before Quentin showed up, warm and giggly, happy, high on touch and endorphins and easy to please—

—but it's another thing entirely, isn't it, for Eliot to convince his brain to believe him.

Eliot sighs. Tucks his face down against Quentin's shoulder, breathing in deep: God, he smells good. Quentin shifts without waking, to slot his hand into Eliot's: winding their fingers up over the slow, steady thud of his heart. Eliot breathes. Squeezing Quentin's hand to Quentin's body as he counts: one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. It'd felt—at first, it had felt superficial. Hadn't it. _Cute_, he'd told Margo. _Hot_, he'd told himself. It hadn't been a lie, but—he'd been trying so hard. One. To ignore. Three, breathing in. Breathing out on four: that profound, bone-deep sense of rightness, Jesus; and it'd only gotten worse when they'd touched. When Quentin had freaked out, in the library, like—Week 2, or something: and Eliot had sat with him, and held his hands. He'd smelled good then, too. It'd been just long enough that the tragic straight boy haze of Axe had worn off, so there was just—Quentin, right at the leading edge of starting to need a shower; and Eliot. Had crouched with him in Quentin's little anxiety-nest in the stacks, rubbing the lovely backs of his fingers and counting: one, two, three, four—to eight, then, because counting breaths with a near-stranger having a panic attack is about a million miles away from listening to their sleep-slow heartbeat, while they're curled up naked with you in your bed. It's okay. It's _okay_. Eliot tucks Quentin's hair behind his ear: he's here, Eliot reminds himself, he's okay. He's here and he's okay and—and none of the twenty thousand things that everyone had told Eliot to worry about have actually seemed to _happen_, so—so if they got through—through Eliot's months-long self-sabotaging temper tantrum and Quentin's long black summer and the hospital and the funeral and figuring out how to handle (or, well—postpone) everything that came after and then _half a year_ on two visits and everything you have to do at Brakebills for half an hour alone with a high-speed internet connection, then fuck it, they can get through this, can't they? Fucking—snowstorms. Eliot's mother. Quentin's first holiday season since—one, two, three, four. One, Eliot reminds himself; two, three, four: Jesus Christ. Or—whatever. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three—maybe if he just doesn't try to _think_ about sleeping—fuck. One. Two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One; two; three. Four. 

Eliot breathes. Breathes: trying to not look at—

—anything.

One.

Part of him—a _part_ of him—is thinking about—dumb things. Just—random shit: he's not trying to _not_ think about any of it; just—keep his focus soft, so he can go back to sleep. Drifting, even though the thoughts come; so the thoughts come, and come, and come. And. 

Toes, Eliot thinks.

And.

Eliot opens his eyes, awake.

It was just—his toes. He can't _not_ think about them, can he. Quentin's toes, in his socks: those horrible dingy-white athletic socks; and Eliot—might've gone back to sleep but—he's definitely not going to. If he's thinking about—

—about Quentin's toes.

So Eliot is thinking about—about Quentin's toes. About how his toes had wiggled, so his socks had wiggled, and Eliot had watched them. It had been, Eliot knows, with very great precision, seven weeks into Quentin's first semester; and Eliot'd still been—well, he'd plotting how to get into his pants before the Trials because maybe Quentin wouldn't make it but Quentin had to make it because what was the point if Quentin didn't make it and Jesus that was stupid stop it he'd make it or he wouldn't make it it didn't have anything to do with Eliot except no, no, no, no, _no_, Eliot, _Jesus_, you don't—_care_, do you, about first-year boys with dumb hair who wear athletic socks inside because the Cottage floors are always so weirdly cold that the unofficial discipline sport has always been convincing the more susceptible students that it's an actual curse and Quentin, Eliot knows, doesn't like shoes. _I don't really—like clothes, honestly_, he'd said, once, when Eliot'd teased him about his awful hoodies; and then cringed as he flushed that bright strawberry red and Eliot had thought: oh boy. Because—because he'd been thinking about—about fucking him, definitely, and not—not about how what Quentin didn't like was so obviously—that his clothes were awkward, or constricting, or both; that he ran cold, but pullovers and scarves both made him feel like he couldn't breathe so he needed to just fucking _embrace the cardigan_ didn't he but clearly no one had ever explained that to him even though obviously he would look right at home in a dad sweater, and alongside all of that, clothes meant that Quentin was always having to—to _make a decision_, wasn't he, because it wasn't—a _freedom_, for Quentin; it wasn't just—_getting to choose_: not for him, not like it was for Eliot, because Quentin didn't _like_ having to make decisions about—about who he was going to be today—: just—just all this _awful responsibility_ of having—a body, of having _that_ body, and that _face_: this sack of meat that needed things and had _sensations_, how dare it, and that other people—had reactions to. People like Alice Quinn, and—and Eliot. So Quentin had had a bad day Week Seven and gone into the reading nook and Eliot had waited what he considered the bare minimum of decently long enough (nine minutes) and then gone upstairs for the soft soft soft muted-grey blanket he'd dragged Margo to the City with him to buy a few weeks ago, because—no reason, and then—followed him, because—because he liked it when Quentin read to him, because—because it was—see the problem. The problem was. The problem was that seven weeks into knowing Quentin Coldwater, Eliot—Eliot just—he just. Knew a lot about him. Like—like how Quentin was good at learning the theoretical parts of spellwork but he had a _serious_ lack of confidence when casting; like how his best friend—like Eliot's—was this tiny waif of a woman who could flatten anyone she liked whenever she liked however she liked and who had had zero shame about having a massive, screaming fight with first Quentin, and then _Dean Fogg_, when she found out that Fogg'd convinced Quentin to go off his meds, because—because that was what Quentin brought out in people who cared about him who of course weren't Eliot. It was just that—seven weeks in Eliot knew that Quentin liked black coffee, as much as he could get; and cigarettes; and weed if and only if he was already relaxed, but that he also had a deeply unfortunate propensity for _accepting_ weed when someone offered it when he was stressed out, despite that inevitably being—a very bad idea indeed; Eliot knew that Quentin was still in touch with his parents but felt like his dad didn't get him and his mom was always disappointed in him and his stepmom made him super super anxious about basically everything on the entire fucking planet; that he'd majored in English and had a truly unnatural love of _Moby Dick_; that he'd almost dropped out of college in his second year; that he'd been hospitalized four times; that he knew almost nothing about wine but had a surprisingly good natural palate; that he didn't like people looking at him or having to talk to new people or people in big groups but he did like reading, even reading aloud, even reading aloud to Eliot: mostly, Eliot suspected, because Eliot didn't tease him about being an actual I-R-L magician who liked fantasy books: invariably ones with happy endings, almost always ones that weren't scary, very frequently ones written for children, and most especially ones by Terry Pratchett: which Quentin liked because they were funny; and because "People," Quentin had explained to Eliot, not looking at him, "are just—_people_ in them, they're—stupid and absurd and petty but they're still—basically just—_okay_." So seven weeks in Eliot just knew. A lot, about Quentin, like—like how Eliot really, really liked. To lie next to him, in the reading nook in the Cottage, while Eliot kept an arm tucked under Quentin's head with Eliot's grey blanket draped over them ankles to ribs so Quentin's neck didn't get sore while he was reading and he didn't feel trapped but he also wouldn't get cold; and so Week 7 Eliot listened to Quentin reading _Guards! Guards!_ and watched Quentin wiggle his toes, which Eliot liked, in his socks, which Eliot didn't; and seven weeks in meant—three, 'til the Trials and—honestly, what were the odds that someone so <strike>lovely</strike>—like, _tender_, the way Quentin was, all underbelly, just—what were the odds that someone <strike>who Eliot</strike> like Quentin _wouldn't_ fail or drop out or run screaming back to the City in the face of <strike>Eliot's whole</strike> ten weeks in the frozen asshole of the planet with Mayakovsky so Eliot—if Eliot was going to, you know, trick him into some no-strings-attached sex with no feelings required, right, something—light, and straightforward, and easy, just—just a little bit of—sexual exploration and discovery, right, because—Eliot'd make it good he could make it so good and—and no one's heart would get broken and there'd be limited opportunities for—anyone to be weird about it after, well, Eliot'd better, like, _get on_ that: except—except. Except that one of the things that Eliot knew was that Week 2, _Alice Quinn_ had fucked Quentin, and then hard noped out of taking care of him after; and Eliot—Eliot—Eliot—there were just. All these Eliots, weren't there, in Week 7. There'd just been all those—those different people. Inside of him: like the Eliot who'd first seen Quentin on the lawn and thought: _Neurotic straight boy: hm, tasty_; and the Eliot who'd got exasperated when Quentin fell over the back of the sofa trying to get away from that redhead who'd kept smiling at him at their Discipline Day party or worried when Kady and her girlfriend were explaining to Quentin that the weed they'd bummed off the naturalists only produced a _mellow_ high and—and the Eliot who was—who was still—angry, actually _angry_: who was just—fucking _furious_ with Alice for having had the fucking awful judgement to pick—_God_, fucking—_Quentin Coldwater_, of all fucking people, for a no-strings-attached-no-feelings-allowed fuck that she'd been over probably before he'd pulled out, when—couldn't she have just—but she hadn't _known_ him, had she, not in Week 2, not like—not like the Eliot. That—that watched Quentin's toes while they lay curled up together in the reading nook and Quentin's voice rose and fell, rose and fell, and built—worlds, everywhere around them; while Eliot kept his arm tucked under his head and felt their hearts beat together through their clothes and watched Quentin's toes wiggle in his socks and then thought: I want to do this forever; and then immediately tried to forget he'd ever wanted anything at all.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/build_worlds)

[Building worlds, everywhere around them.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/build_worlds)

Eliot tips his face down. Eyes closed. Mouth pressed to Quentin's shoulder, tasting salt while he counts Quentin's heartbeats: one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Because. Because that was—years ago, though. Wasn't it. Two years ago, and then some: two years and three months, nearly, when Week 7, Quentin had paused—at a section break because Terry Pratchett, Eliot had already been duly instructed, didn't really _believe_ in chapters—and then Quentin had turned his face up, looking at Eliot from about six inches away, with that stubborn pink mouth and his big brown eyes and he'd said, _I had a really bad day_; and Eliot'd nodded and said, _Do you want to talk about it?_; and Quentin had said, _Mostly I want you to kiss me_. 

One, Eliot thinks, curling in tighter: two, three, four. Two years. He's not the same Eliot, now, is he? He has what he wants.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/yet_another_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/yet_another_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/yet_another_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/yet_another_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/yet_another_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/yet_another_gifset)

[He has what he wants.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/yet_another_gifset)

So. He's not going to fall back asleep, is he. If he's thinking about Quentin's toes. He feels—weirdly okay about it, though: Quentin tucked in against him, warm and soft. Still smelling good—better, now, honestly: Eliot'd got him to throw out the Axe ages ago. It's—nice. Part of Eliot keeps persisting in reminding him how worried he's been, about—about making this day. _Okay_ for Quentin—and then the rest of him reminds him that they've already done the really hard ones already, haven't they? Ted's birthday, the third of March; Memorial Day, when Ted'd always grilled and reminisced about decades of picnic salads and barbecue served up alongside good-natured bickering: sometimes bickering about meat and sometimes bickering about drinks but almost always bickering between _Ted_'s dad, who'd been a no-good hippie peacenik—Ted's words, not Eliot's—and Ted's grandpa, who'd flown B-24s in the Pacific during WWII: who had—alongside the inevitable squabbling about food—argued about the bomb and the Russians and capitalism and American imperialism while their wives laughed at them and everyone passed Ted from loving arm to loving arm: _Our bitter family feud_, Ted had laughed, because that's something that merits laughing, in the Coldwater family. But Quentin and Eliot had made it through Memorial Day, hadn't they. Father's Day, too. And it'd been—hard, for Quentin, of _course_ it had been hard, it'd even been hard for _Eliot_. So—he'd worried, that's all, about this. Even though Eliot knows, with his brain, if not the rest of him, that for Quentin, the holidays are—well, of course it's different. Not just because Quentin is... not from Indiana, but because Quentin's parents are—_were_—_divorced_. 

In the blue-grey underwater light through the window, Eliot sighs. Squeezing him: Quentin snuffles a little, but doesn't wake up. Fruitless source of grief and anxiety number twelve thousand seven hundred and forty-six: Quentin's life-long lack of a real Hallmark Christmas, the kind that involves getting just exactly the present you want and being warm enough and spending time with all the people who love you and which can only be properly viewed under, minimum, twelve thousand dollars of professional lighting through the soft-focus haze of a Vaseline-smeared camera lens: like anyone on the planet has ever actually had anything that looked even _remotely_ like that at all. Eliot kisses Quentin's shoulder, and extracts himself, very carefully, from their bed, so he can go steal a cigarette before he gets started on the pancakes.

He's quiet, shuffling through the kitchen. In the early-morning barely-light, all Eliot can see of the pullout is a heap of blankets and duvet. The ranunculus has finally given up, so Eliot brushes off the table, as quietly as he can, and sets the jar in the sink on his way out onto the fire escape.

The flower petals still feel—velvety. Damp. If it were just him and Quentin and Margo—well. It isn't, is it? So he scatters the petals over the railing of the fire escape: watching them fall as little bright wine-dark snowflakes, fluttering down amid the white. Maybe—maybe, he thinks, lighting up: maybe, if Quentin is going to move out here, after graduation. Maybe Eliot should—actually spend some of the money he's been frantically stashing away. Maybe—

His phone buzzes, buried deep under about seventy thousand layers of jacket, so Eliot spends a shivery and uncomfortable forty-five seconds digging it out: Margo. _what kind of so-called "city"_, it begins; so Eliot just—calls.

"What are you doing awake, at this hour?" he asks, even though—

"Hey, it's an hour later, here," Margo says, "it's—eight twenty-six. Fuck."

Eliot takes a drag. Lets it out: the sky is blue-grey and dimensionless, until it plops ice water on your face. "Yeah," he agrees.

"Shit, are we getting old?" Margo asks. "Do we just... _wake up_, now? When it's time for work?"

Eliot rubs at his forehead. "I don't know, I've been leaving for work at like five minutes to seven every morning for three months, so. I think this _is_ sleeping in, for me."

"Jesus, that's pathetic," Margo says, with her usual irreplaceable level of sympathy. 

He grins. "Thank you, Bambi."

"You know what I mean." 

"Yeah, I do." Exhaling: a long sharp plume. "No flights?"

"Two guesses," she says; and he scratches at an eyebrow. 

"Maybe it'll clear up tonight."

"Sure, stranger things have happened." She sighs. "How's—everything, how's—oh, you know, your slutty boyfriend, your surprise mother—"

"My mom's still asleep." He looks down at his hideous joke size-13 Uggs. Oh, well. They're warm, at least. "Quentin is, as always, delightful."

"So, slutty," she suggests.

"It's very wrong of you to be so judgmental about someone enjoying the physical side of love," he says; which causes her to emit a horrified sort of bleating noise that he will treasure, always. "Now, now, Bambi, sexual intimacy—"

"Oh my God _stop_," she says, all in a rush. "This is awful. I know you're joking because you _have_ to be joking but I can't see your face and it's—fucking terrifying, okay? Oh my God. That's like—my worst nightmare, I swear to God."

"I thought you liked getting progress reports," he says.

"Not when they include the words _sexual intimacy_, I don't. Please, Eliot, I've already had to contend with him weeping uncontrollably over Thanksgiving weekend because _I'm_ pretty fucking thankful for Babeland, but _Q_'s such a size queen that it just made him lonely—_lonely_, Eliot—and then for some reason that became _my_ problem, somehow?"

He grins up at the underside of the third floor landing, shadowy and dark. "Was it because you were the person who had the poor judgement to take him sex toy shopping and then out to the bar?"

"You've already heard this story, haven't you," she says, resigned; and he laughs.

"I have in fact already heard it from _both_ of you," he says. "In substantively different editions."

"Yeah, well if his didn't involve crying he's lying through his teeth," she says; which—it did, but it's not the kind of thing that Margo says because she's expecting an answer, is it.

"Yesterday, when my mom showed up," he says, instead, "I'd just finished sucking him off while I got him to watch in the mirror."

"Oho. Okay, that's _much_ better than anything involving the words _sexual intimacy_." He can hear her shifting around. The click of a lighter, without him there to do it for her. "Apology accepted. Also—how '_just_' are we talking about here?"

"Oh, you know." He takes a long, not-very-steadying drag. "_Just_ enough to be terrible and traumatic on its own account, while still managing to leave enough time for it to _also_ be terrible and traumatic because we were already basically doing it again."

"Fuck," she says, succinct.

"Yep," Eliot agrees. "That's the one."

"And since then..."

"No wall," he reminds her.

"Well, Jesus, no wonder you can't sleep," she says, "that is—an incredibly shitty fucking start to Christmas"; and Eliot.

Leans forward. Touching an index finger against the window glass. 

Looking in.

In the half-light of the storm-filtered sunrise, he can see—his apartment, suspended. The still quiet kitchen counters, and his still quiet butcher-block table, and their still quiet clock resting under its sheet for Quentin to carefully, delicately, disassemble it down to the gears at its heart; and then carefully, delicately, coax it back to life. On the other side of the glass Eliot is smoking with one love of his life tucked against his ear and the other tucked up in his bed, and okay, fine, so his last blood relation in the universe is asleep on the sofa, but—

—and Eliot says, "It's still better than I'm used to," very quietly; and on the other end of the line, Margo lets out a long, slow breath.

"You know," she says, after a long, taut moment. "When I was a kid, I used to go to Mass with my abuela."

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/phone_call)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/phone_call)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/phone_call)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/phone_call)

[—and Eliot says, "It's still better than I'm used to," very quietly; and on the other end of the line, Margo lets out a long, slow breath.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/phone_call)

He swallows. Braces his forearm against the window, so he can rest against the building without the cold burning his face off. "The one who you were close to?" he asks. Her dad's mom: the only relative, he knows, that Margo still talks to, to the tune of cards at birthdays and for Margo's Brakebills graduation; and a twice-monthly text.

"Yeah. Valeria," she says, quiet. "We were a lot closer when I was little. And—I liked all the—the _ceremony_, you know?"

"The magic," he offers.

"Yeah," she says; and then— "Well—that and the bling," she admits. Very dry. "I think I would be way more into religion in general if they _all_ came with high-end accessories."

"Well, wouldn't we all," he says. His chest unclenching, marginally. 

"Well, _I_ definitely would," she says; and he huffs.

Not quite a laugh.

She's quiet, for a minute.

"I never actually—_believed_, you know?" she says, after a second. "But—she did. Does, I guess. And—I spent all this time worrying what would happen, if I told her that I—you know, I liked—sex, and _girls_, and _winning_ and—all this stuff that—that didn't seem like it fit in that world, with her. At Mass. And then—God, my _dad_ was shitty about basically every part of it, including—all the stuff that he did constantly, without even—even _remotely_ acknowledging the hypocrisy of it all, but—Valeria mostly just seemed—perplexed, I guess." 

She's quiet, for a minute. Eliot's cigarette has gone out. He relights it. He'll have an awful headache, if he _doesn't_ feed his addiction, so—

"Part of me," Margo says. "A _part_ of me, you know?"

"Yeah," Eliot says. Taking a drag.

"A part of me thinks that maybe that should be _worse_," she says; and Eliot.

Rubs his forehead against the wool of his jacket-sleeve.

And then comes to rest.

"It's not worse, for me," he says; and then swallows. 

"Yeah?"

"Not—not that part of it," he explains; and she lets out a breath. 

So close he can feel it, almost.

Almost.

"Anyway." He straightens up, blinking. "Who the fuck cares, it's just—some arbitrary Monday, isn't it?"

"_Yeah_," she agrees: her voice forceful again. Back on solid ground.

He nods. "If we were all back at Brakebills we'd be, what—running naked through the woods, or—"

"That was Thursday," she corrects. "Longest night of the year."

"Oh, well, _pardon me_," he says, "wouldn't want to get my junk out on the wrong day of the week—"

"Oh, please," she scoffs, "you _love_ getting your junk out, _any_ day of the week"; which—fair, but. Eliot hugs his arms around himself, his cheeks aching from smiling, and the cold.

"What'd you get me?" he asks; because—they've done their faux-pagan, naked-in-the-woods, is-this-now-culturally-obligatory-since-we're-magicians? winter solstice gift exchange three years, now. Twice, with Quentin—this'll be the third time. Fourth, for just Margo and Eliot. It'd started as a joke, honestly, even if now it—isn't, quite: the only rules are that whatever gets given has to be both beautiful and useless; and Eliot's outdone himself for Margo, this year, he thinks: it's a box, about the size of a briefcase, made out of cedarwood and mother-of-pearl, with about twenty tiny doors and drawers that wouldn't hold anything much bigger than a paper clip. There's a spell for that in one of his work references, but it violates the "useless" rule, so he'll have to either hold onto enchanting the thing until her birthday, or just show her how to do it.

"Nuh-uh, nice try," she says. "I _know_ Q already gave you his gross embodiment of love and togetherness, so you can wait until I see you to get your present from me." She shifts around: he can hear her bed creaking. "Fuck, what'm I going to do today? Nothing I had planned is even remotely applicable."

He closes his eyes. "What _did_ you have planned?"

"Oh, you know." She sighs. "I feel like I'm owed a _substantial_ number of backrubs from the two of you, so I figured I'd cash in on those, for starters"; and he grins.

"It's true," he says. "We _do_ owe you a lot of backrubs."

"_So many_ backrubs," she agrees, very earnestly: he can't stop smiling. _Backrubs_ is probably about 10% actually what anyone else would consider a backrub and 90% Margo for _cuddling_, but they'd let her cash in either way, wouldn't they? 

"I helped Quentin unpack his bag," Eliot says. "He brought some of Frankie's weed."

"Oh, _really_": intrigued. "Well, that wasn't on the list but it is now—that'd go great with item number two, anyway."

"What's item number two?"

"Lounging around on your sofa eating cheese popcorn and drinking Prosecco," she says.

"Surprisingly downmarket," he notes; and she says, "No, I know you're saving": dismissive, in that way that means gentleness, from Margo. He ducks his head.

"All right, well, in that case I won't push for the Veuve Clicquot," he says. As lightly as he can.

"Hm. Well—to make it up to me, I _do_ expect you to loan me your boyfriend to fetch and carry as needed."

"He'd probably do that anyway?" Eliot admits; and she starts laughing.

"El, if you don't think I've picked up by now on the fact that Quentin gets approximately 15% more cuddly and eager every time someone asks him to do something trivial and very slightly demeaning, you have a much lower opinion of my intelligence than I thought—I may need to revisit our friendship": Eliot rolls his eyes.

"I was just reminding you," he says, "since we were just talking about how old and senile you're getting—"

"Oh, no, you're not getting out of it _that_ easily, Waugh. I think I deserve at least... four more backrubs," she decides, "if I'm going to help you lightly dominate your boyfriend."

"I can go as high as two," he offers.

"Three, and you pay for the takeout."

"I thought it was cheese popcorn."

"Yes, for, like, _the afternoon_," she says, exasperated, "but obviously, if we're going to spend all of Christmas cuddling and smoking up, we're going to want takeout _later_."

She has a point. "Okay," he says, grinning. "Okay, fine, three extra backrubs, and I pay for the takeout."

"_Thank_ you."

He finishes off his cigarette. Ditches the butt. "Anything else I need to budget for?" he asks. "Besides the popcorn, the takeout, and what's starting to sound like a really wanton excess of physical affection?"

"Netflix," she says, immediately. "Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire."

"...that's very specific."

"Yeah, Humbledrum—the last High King—talked Her Majesty into organizing—"

"Wait, his name is _Humbledrum_?"

"—this dance-based cultural exchange thing, and—yeah, I mean." Margo hesitates. "That is. Not the part _I'd_ get stuck on, but—. It's apparently a very common name," she explains, "if you're a bear."

Eliot pauses. "Like..."

"No, not like—he's a _bear_, like a bear-bear," she says. "Like an actual wild animal." She takes a noisy breath. "Who happens to be named the bear equivalent of John Smith; and who also likes to dance."

"That last part's not actually that weird," he tells her. 

"Yeah, well, you know what _is_ weird? He's surprisingly nimble," Margo says. "I can't keep up."

"Your job is way more bizarre than mine," he says; and she says, "Of _course_ it is, not all of us picked our careers in part based on which were likely to offer the prospect of _decent benefits packages_ in _central locations_ close to _suburbs_ with _good schools_, _Eliot_": and Eliot.

Looks down at his feet.

At—his shoes. At the tassels on his Uggs. They're ridiculous. And she's not even—_here_, so—

"Sorry," she says; after a second; and he says, "Was it an insult?"

She's quiet, for a heartbeat. 

Another.

"Anyway," he says.

"El," she interrupts. 

He doesn't say anything.

"It wasn't an insult."

He swallows. "I mean." He laughs, a little. "It's not like I—'d _mind_, or whatever—"

"Eliot," she repeats, "it wasn't an insult"; and he stops. 

"Are you, really?" she asks, after a minute. Voice quiet; and he rubs at his forehead.

"I'm not—_not_, exactly," he admits, finally; and she sighs again.

"Gross," she sighs; then says, "I love you"; and Eliot swallows.

"I love you, too"; and she hums, long and slow and sweet.

He presses the phone to his face. Eyes closed. Listening to her breathe.

"I keep forgetting to give Quentin his keys," he admits. Rubs at his forehead. "I keep thinking—oh, well, but he definitely already has them. Doesn't he?"

"Also gross," she says: decisive, immediate. He doesn't argue, because—_well_; and—and then. Then, a breath later, Margo asks, "Is this seriously stressing you out?"

Very low.

He looks up at the sky.

He could lie, he thinks; and then—huffs a laugh. As though she wouldn't just—see right through him, immediately.

"Not that part of it," he admits; and tethered to him by nothing but air and plastic and metal and—like, whatever it is that three bars actually _means_: Margo just lets out a long, deeply put-upon sigh.

"Listen," she says, after a minute. "You already know what I think."

He scrubs at his forehead. "Yeah."

She sighs again. "Just. Don't be an idiot, okay?" she says. "And don't be mean to my friends"; and he swallows.

"No promises," he says: voice light.

"Jesus, you're a nightmare sometimes," she mutters; and then lapses into that comfortable, ice-hot prickly them-together silence that just—lives between them, so much of the time—

"You should bring some face masks," Eliot says, finally; and she says, "Ooh, good idea": her voice brightening up; so then he adds, "Fair notice, if we all fall asleep together on the bed again, I'm not promising anything about not waking you up."

"That's all right," she says: cheerful again, "I'll just kick the two of you out and make you go finish on the sofa, so I can get my beauty sleep": so Eliot hangs up on her, half-laughing, because honestly, that's really the only response that one deserves.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Eliot's halfway through measuring out the dries when Quentin comes in—_back_ in his PJs, only semi-unfortunately; and warm and pliable, when he comes over to drape himself against Eliot's side. Eliot kisses his temple, his mouth, while Quentin wraps his arms around Eliot's waist and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes. He's got a pillow-crease running down the whole right half of his face, and his hair looks like something's been nesting in it. It makes Eliot's chest hurt, so he kisses him again.

"Don't let me forget to give you your keys, okay?" Eliot murmurs; and Quentin just—hums. Nods: still half asleep.

Unfair, maybe. But—

Quentin kisses him. Then he mumbles, "I can pick locks, you know": barely—a breath, even. Which—

"Yeah." Eliot nods. "I remember"; as Quentin nuzzles their faces together. Smiling, sleepy and sweet. His whole body tucking in closer against him, as Eliot whispers, "I'm still giving you a set of keys."

"Mm." Still just—nodding, a little, as they kiss.

And kiss.

And finally, only just—

—they kiss.

Nose. Jaw. Quentin settles his cheek down, warm and scratchy-soft against the fabric at Eliot's shoulder, making himself comfortable; and after a second, Eliot reaches around him for the baking soda.

"What're you making?" Quentin whispers. No walls, between them and Rachel, so Eliot's been doing his mise-en-place by the light of the single dim, honeyish bulb set over the sink.

"Mm. Pancakes."

Quentin tips his face up. "The good kind?"

"The good kind," Eliot confirms, because before Eliot had made them _actual_ pancakes, Quentin and Ted had _both_ only ever had the rubber kind that turn up in second-rate overpriced East Coast diners; or the kind made with—horror of horrors—_Bisquick_. "How'd you sleep?"

Quentin rubs his face on Eliot's pajama shirt again: humming, low. "A lot," he says, finally. "I slept a lot. You were up, though?"

Eliot swallows. "Yeah," he says. "Brain weasels."

"Fucking brain weasels," Quentin sighs, and then presses his whole body against Eliot's: like they could _get_ closer, even, with their pajamas in the way. "Your mom?" he asks: barely breath, right up against Eliot's ear.

"My mom, work, family, holidays in general—sort of the Brain Weasels' Greatest Hits," Eliot admits; and then sighs. "I've been worried about you, baby."

Quentin nuzzles his face in against Eliot's throat. "M'okay."

"Yeah?" Eliot pets at the soft fine hair at his nape, swallowing. "Because I sort of—feel like I ditched you, with." He sighs. "The house, and—"

"The house is okay." Quentin tips his face up. "_Honestly_," he says, looking much more awake. "It—I've just, I've been going down on weekends, that's all, like—I mean, _you_ know what it's like, so—sometimes I'm there with Margo and sometimes with Julia and sometimes with Penny but by myself a lot of the time because I just—want some time by myself, you know?" His hand is moving on Eliot's back: up-down. Up-down. Soothing. 

"Yeah," Eliot says, quiet. Thesis hell: he remembers. "And—sometimes Julia and Penny make it worse, I bet?"

Quentin nods. "Yeah. They do."

"Because they're stressed out, too."

"Because they're stressed out too," Quentin agrees. "But—when it's just me, or—like, me and Margo, or me and Kady—it's kind of _nice_, you know? Doing. Something that's _not_ my thesis, doing something so fucking—_ordinary_."

"Yeah." Eliot tucks Quentin's hair back. "Does it make you sad?" he asks. Chest aching.

Quentin doesn't answer right away. "Sometimes," he says. "Sometimes it's—nice, in. In a very weird way? And—honestly, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that I'm still just. Putting aside."

"Yeah," Eliot agrees.

"The—planes, mostly," Quentin admits; and then ducks his head. "Photo albums."

"Yeah." Rubbing, rubbing.

"I've been—I thought," Quentin says, very low, "that—that stuff would be easier. If I waited, and." Breathing in, deep. "Until you could help me with it," he says, quiet; and Eliot swallows.

"I'm pretty much done, after we set the base in February," Eliot says. "I was going to ask Lu for a few days, and then—she gave us all the whole first full week of March off. That's, um—the fifth through the ninth. But." The third's a Saturday, this year. "I could fly out Friday night," Eliot suggests; and then squeezes the back of Quentin's neck. "Stay the whole week, if you need me."

Quentin doesn't say anything, for a second.

"Or," Eliot says, very quietly, "I could just—take you away, that weekend. And we could save doing the rest of it, if doing it then would be too hard."

"Maybe—we could do both." Quentin looks up at him. "I—I don't want to forget his birthday. But."

"Yeah," Eliot says. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Quentin nods, and ducks his face down. Resting.

"Rochester?" Eliot suggests. "I know you're still dying to go to the Strong Museum, don't lie": as Quentin's cheeks turn pink.

"That might be nice." Quentin hooks his fingers together behind Eliot's back. "Or—there's always—Savannah's really beautiful, and it's not expensive—Julia and I ran away there my second year of college, when I was—"

"Freaking out?"

"Yeah, freaking out," Quentin agrees. "It was like a month before finals. And—it might be warmer, there?"

Eliot nods. Swallowing, throat sore: Savannah, huh. "Will we get lynched?" he asks, after a second. Light. Because—he has to; and Quentin tips his face up. A dimple showing, just a little, on the right.

"The first time I made out with a boy in a bar was in Savannah, actually," he says; and Eliot lets out a breath.

"Really?"

"Really," Quentin confirms. "Julia took me out and was like, 'Savannah has an amazing queer scene, what, didn't you know that, Quentin?' Like she didn't just—look it up on the internet, like half an hour before she kidnapped me." Another dimple: Eliot'll have to get that story out of Julia, for sure. Just—later.

"Okay," Eliot says. Petting Quentin's hair. "Then—does that mean you'll make out with me in a bar in Savannah?"; and Quentin presses his smile down against Eliot's throat.

"You gonna make it worth my while?" Quentin asks. Muffled.

"Hmm," Eliot says, "Hold on, let me think about it": rubbing Quentin's shoulders while he giggles. 

Eliot breathes. All that skin, warm through Quentin's henley.

Eliot could, probably, stand there all morning: suspended, almost. In the quiet. But Quentin needs coffee, breakfast; and once he stops giggling, Eliot can feel him starting, slowly, to realize it: the tension starting up in his body, like he's finally starting to wake up enough to remember to be awkward. Finally Eliot pulls back and says, "Okay, enough canoodling, let me feed you," and Quentin huffs, half-laughing, but he lets Eliot pull back. Q goes over to poke, a little, at the clock; but the kitchen light barely reaches as far as the table, let alone Eliot's desk, so he comes back once Eliot's finished brewing two cups of coffee, and helps Eliot flip the pancakes.

Rachel comes out while Eliot's finishing up the second round, the first batch keeping warm in the oven. She's wearing heavy flannel pajamas—they're a hideous muddy-olive plaid, but they're the right size, at least, for once—and her hair is frizzing out of its braid, curling wildly. It feels—familiar: he thinks. Like there are—

—there are. All these things, that he remembers, like—

—like how, when he was really really little on Saturdays he used to lie under the quilt in his room in his dinosaur pajamas and listen, listen, listen until the truck—or, or sometimes—sometimes he'd wake up early, really early, so early it was still dark out, a lot of the time, even in the summer, and then crawl out of bed careful-careful-careful to not let the door slam shut or step on the second stair on the right where it squeaked or touch any light switches that'd click when they turned on: just creeping downstairs like he was a _Sino-sauro-pter-yx_ and he had to be very very careful not to get the attention of the—the Utahraptor in the big front bedroom because Utahraptor was so much bigger but _Sino-sauro-pter-yx_ was very very small and that meant he could be quiet and sneaky and fast so that he could get into the kitchen without getting caught and steal food just right out from under the Utahraptor's nose even though they both ate meat: _Like hamburgers?_ Mom asked, leaning over the stove; and Eliot said, _No!_, laughing at her; so Mom said, _Like... meatloaf? Or... barbecue?_; so Eliot explained: _No! Like bugs! And lizards! And—_, but he couldn't remember what Ms. Montalvo had said they were called but he knew that they were like—dogs and people, they had warm hearts and—fur—but were very very small, like—mice, sort of, maybe, so the _Sino-sauro-pter-yx_, who was not very big, could eat them; and Mom had said, _Hm, we could use one around, if they'd eat the mice_, and then she had come over with his pancakes: shaped like bugs, lizards, mice; and after he ate them and roared—a little, just—a little, very quietly, because—he didn't want Utahraptor to—steal his pancakes, then Mom had asked, _So, Sinosaur whatever_; so he had to teach her how to say it correctly, like Ms. Montalvo had taught him (_It's okay, Eliot, don't look at the whole thing, just the first part: Sino—_), and then Mom asked, _What makes them the best?_, so Eliot had explained, _They're new_, and then, _They're cool_; and then, since she kept asking, laughing while she made him more bugs and lizards and mice to eat with pancake batter from a rinsed-out ketchup bottle—_Come on, we didn't have Sinosauropteryx when I was in school, tell me_—he had—he had got—he had got that weird achy-sick feeling all over, but—but he—he wasn't supposed to lie, was he, because—because—after Halloween, there'd been _Don't_ all those _lie_ sounds and _to—_ and the door, slamming, and then—then Pastor Tim had crouched down _Don't_ and talked to Eliot _Don't li—_ about how lying was bad _Don't_ lie _to me_ and only bad people weren't _to me_ honest which meant not _Don't lie to me!_ hid—lying—from—and then—then Pastor Tim had even—done a whole sermon about it the next Sunday and Eliot had sat there listening and knowing everyone was watching him and knowing it was because he had said—and, and because _don't lie—!_ and, and there was no place to _don't_ hide and his whole body was on fire: so Eliot had told his mother the truth. He had said: _I like them because—because they were dinosaurs_. Feeling—bad. Even though—_she_ never yelled, did she? She just—hid with him, sometimes, under the table, so—so maybe: _They _were_ dinosaurs_, Eliot had explained, _they were _just like_ the other dinosaurs, they were like all the other dinosaurs and they lived with all the other dinosaurs_: so why did Eliot still feel—so bad, explaining: _—only—only Ms. Montalvo says—that they had feathers_.

And, at the stove, Mom—Eliot's mom—_Rachel_ had got.

Very, very quiet.

"Morning," Rachel says, in her pajamas in Eliot's kitchen, in 2017; and then she adds, "Merry Christmas." 

Her is voice hushed: Eliot looks down at his skillet, and flips a pancake, which is round: still feeling that horrible half-remembered surge of humiliation: trying to meet Pastor Tim's disappointed eyes; and an older (younger) him, fuzzed with anger, mercilessly ashamed: a shower of bright sharp flaring sparks all over as he'd tried so hard to shove that younger him aside: all these awful pointless things he—_was_, he'd been, that just—just _dissolve_, that are dissolving, into—_finally_—_annoyance_: at fucking last. Eliot's—ribs. He's just. _Annoyed_, he's—annoyed, isn't he: annoyed at—at—at the situation, at R—at Rachel's soft voice, in their half-lit kitchen: as though—(all this _irritation_, filling Eliot's chest up; room for nothing else—): as though they'd been talking quietly to not wake someone _else_ up.

"Merry Christmas," Quentin is saying, beside him. "Coffee?"

"Um—yeah, thank you": Rachel pulling her hands into the sleeves of her sweater. "How'd you sleep?"

"Um." Quentin laughs, a little. "I'm still—recovering from the semester," he explains, while he's getting her coffee started. "So—I was more or less unconscious. What about you?": while Eliot finishes flipping that batch of pancakes, and then looks out at the sick-churning sea of white outside the window.

"Good!" She sounds—surprised, like—like she's planning to—and Jesus, Eliot just needs. To stop. "That pullout's actually really comfortable," she tells Quentin: sounding—happy. Well-rested. Pleased.

"Ikea," Eliot says, light; then asks, "You were warm enough?"

"Oh—definitely." She pushes her hair back: that corona of curls and frizz. "I haven't been that cozy in years."

She smiles at him. She has—such a nice smile, he is thinking: she's so pretty. She's always been pretty. His throat hurts. Those pajamas really are awful. She should wear—jewel tones, he's thinking: she should wear—sapphire, and emerald, and rose. The deepest richest bright-dark plum-purple she can find.

"Pancakes?" Eliot asks, grabbing his spatula again. "One more batch, then they're done." 

"Oh—thank you," she says, sounding very pleased. "I haven't had homemade pancakes in years."

"Eliot's are really good," Quentin tells her, opening the plate cupboard. "I didn't used to think I even liked pancakes, honestly, before I had his."

"Oh, really?" She looks at Eliot. "How do you make them?"

Eliot clears his throat. "It's your recipe, actually," he admits; and she ducks her head. Turning pink.

"Um. Glad to know it's held up," she says; and then laughs, awkwardly. Shifts, a little, from foot to foot. 

Sips her coffee.

"Can you get stuff to put on them?" Eliot asks Quentin; so Quentin gets the jam and the syrup and folds more paper towels so they can pretend like they're real napkins and Rachel puts down forks and knives and spoons and Quentin gets halfway through a warming charm on the plates, automatic, before Eliot can catch his wrist. Tip his head back towards Rachel's back, a reminder; so Quentin lets out a breath, and jerks a short sharp line to end the spell.

The pancakes came out pretty well, Eliot thinks. Quentin puts maple syrup all over his—typical—but Eliot's never really _got_ syrup: he's just never really felt weird about it until he's sitting with his pancakes, watching Rachel put spoonfuls of cherry jam—Eliot's favorite—onto hers. She hands the jar over without even asking, though, so he—takes it. 

Whatever. It's delicious.

"I checked the weather report," Quentin says, between bites. "Have you seen it yet?"

Rachel shakes her head. "Not yet—I came out as soon as I woke up."

"Well, it's still pretty awful," Quentin says, and then darts a look at Eliot, who—nods. Stomach tight: what's he going to do, cast his mom out into the snow? _Literally?_

"I think you'd better stay until it clears," Eliot says. "Did they—"

"Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after?" Quentin scrunches his face up. "Apparently this storm is breaking all the models. And whoever's writing the copy for the NWS is getting a little punchy, I think; they put in like six probability puns and a joke about Schrodinger's cat."

"So, you must've been pleased," Eliot says, smiling.

"I do like a good math pun," Quentin agrees, smiling back.

Eliot's back prickles up, all at once, even though—he stops. It doesn't matter. It doesn't. So what if she can—stop. Refocus: he takes a breath. Finally, he says, "I'm sorry, though, Mom," ignoring—trying to ignore—Quentin's big brown eyes and his soft soft smile and—his _mother_— 

"This is a pretty boring place to be stuck," Eliot says, "with the weather like this."

"Oh, no, it's fine, I brought—I'm making some things for Patricia's baby," Rachel explains, still—_looking_ at Eliot; and Eliot swallows. Nods. At this point probably everyone in Whiteland had something Rachel had sewed or knitted or crocheted for them: they'd never had any money, when Eliot was a kid, but Rachel had always been a fucking _expert_ at the Thoughtful Gift made from—thrifted curtains she'd cut up, or one of—someone's old sweaters she'd unraveled and turned into a kid's hat and scarf: a baby means—she'd've splurged on new yarn, probably. Probably in a soft butter yellow: her quiet gentle unobtrusive single-brick sea wall against the tsunami of good old Midwestern gender essentialism, so quiet and gentle and unobtrusive that no one else would ever notice it at all. "What about you?" Rachel asks. "What did you have planned?"

Quentin looks at Eliot, very obviously trying to come up to a parent-friendly alternative to _recreational drugs and frantic screwing_; so Eliot says, "Oh, nothing much, just—Margo was supposed to be here, so the three of us were just going to hang out, catch up a little." 

Easy. Light.

She nods. "No—parties, or anything?"

"On Christmas?" Eliot laughs, a little. "No, I mean—almost everyone's at home," he explains. "With their—uh, families." He clears his throat. "New Year's is more—that sort of thing."

She nods again. Hesitates, then looks at Quentin, as she asks, "And you're not—you don't—are you. Going to church?"

And Eliot.

Can resist, he can resist, he _is_ resisting, he is trying as hard as he can to resist the sudden, paralytic clench of his back, his shoulders, his thighs and fingers and jaw.

"Well, I—um. I'm not really religious," Quentin is saying. Sounding. _Apologetic_: "Like, I'm not—I don't know if I'm an—atheist, or whatever, exactly? I'm just not—it's not, like, all that imp—uh, you know, um, central to my life, I guess? Like, I know—like, I mean, I know _about_ religion, sort of?" Shifting, shifting in his chair. "Like—um, Julia, she's—my best friend, she's—um, her dad, he was sort of—he'd gone to AA—uh, and then. I think he went to church, too?" Quentin says, sounding— "And like, I mean, I know—um, I read the Bible in college? Like—I took a class on. On how to—like, I was an English major, not—it was, you know, _The Bible As Literature_, that sort of thing, so I wouldn't have to keep just—you know, smiling and nodding whenever a professor had to explain that something was a reference to the Psalms or whatever and—and I mean, I know some people who are religious?" —_mortified_, Eliot realizes: he sounds—_mortified_, and Eliot— "Like—uh, um, I mean—do, do _you_ want to go to church?" Quentin asks, uncertain; palpably at sea: "Because—it's not like I—have a _problem_ with religion—"

"I do," Eliot says, sudden and harsh and sharp: and Quentin looks up at him, eyes dark and worried; as Rachel.

Flinches.

And Eliot. Eliot doesn't want, he didn't mean to—

The plates are empty. He gets up. He picks up the plates. He puts the plates in a stack even though it'll mean he'll have to scrub sugary goo off the bottoms and carries them over to the sink and runs water on the brush and then remembers to put soap on it and then he puts soap on it and runs water on it again and turns the water off and then Quentin says, "It's—okay, El"; and Eliot says, "Sorry, baby, but—it really, _really_ isn't," with—

—with his _heart_—

Eliot's neck. Tensing up so hard it drags his eyes down, down, down: hunched over the sink. He—breathes. In. Out. In—again.

And—

—again.

"If you want to go to church," Eliot says, "fine." Even though—even though he can't—he can't even look at her. Can he. While he says it. "But _I'm_ not going to church," he manages, "and I'll tell you right now that I'm not letting you drag _Quentin_ to church, just because—because he likes you and he wants you to like him and also he hates disappointing grown-ups, but I fucking don't, and I—would—throw my fucking body in front of him before I let anyone hurt him and I—I fucking _do_ have a problem with religion, okay?": bursting. Tearing out of him: "and I'm not—I'm not going to _fake it_": with the words—feeling like—like a battering ram, _inside_ of him—with his hands—clenched so tight they hurt— "not—not for—_you_, not for _Christmas_, not for—I'm just—fucking _done_, okay?" Breathing in: unsteady. Deep. "I'm not going to do it," Eliot says. "I'm not—that _idiot_ anymore, I'm not going to just—pretend that it's fine while some condescending asshole patiently explains to me that the transcendant beauty of God's boundless all-encompassing love doesn't extend to—to undocumented immigrants, or Muslims, or—or _me_, or _Margo_, or—or _Quentin_, _Jesus_": Eliot laughs, dizzy. "Not—_any_ of us, not _anyone_, not fucking—_dildos and musical theater_, okay? I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to let anyone tell—not—for one single fucking _second_ that—that he has to—change anything about himself to merit—that love from a-_anybody_, I'm not—"

"El," Quentin says, quiet; and "No," Eliot says, "No, I—I'm just—_not_"; and hand shifting—reaching out, almost— "I know," Quentin says, "It's okay": very gently, "we're okay"; but—but Eliot shakes his head, because— "I _can't_," Eliot explains, chest tied in nots, "I can't, I can't—_do_ that, I can't let someone—make _you_ feel like you have to do it, I'm just—"

Breathing in.

"Done," Eliot says, finally.

Hands clenched. 

Empty. He looks at Quentin, desperate; and Quentin's mouth twists, his eyes widening: Q's little _well, there's that_ shrug-emoji smile that comes out whenever he's half-sick with embarrassment. That boundless, Quentinish generosity: that Quentin can feel like that, and still not look away. Rachel hasn't moved. Her head is bowed over the table, her face half-veiled by the corona of her hair: _Sorry_, Eliot is thinking. _Sorry, sorry_: feeling frantic, _desperate_—

—but it isn't something that he can, actually, still let himself say.

"It used to be important to you," Rachel says, after a second; and Eliot says, "So was Pokémon"; and Quentin lets out a hugely awkward, braying laugh, and then presses both hands over his mouth. Eyes huge; and then—

—and then Rachel says, "And—not all churches are like that"; and Eliot—drops the dishbrush into the sink, stepping back: not thinking, not—he can't, he can't—_think_, he needs—his shoulders—curling in curving in with his heart feeling like it's about to hammer its way through his shriveling paper-thin rotten-onion skin and "After I left—Indiana," Rachel is explaining, in a tight, frantic sort of rush, "when we were living—I, for a while I went to—there was, out in Scarsdale, it was—the UCC, it was really important to me that they were—welcoming, it wasn't—"

"Oh, _that's_ interesting!" Quentin interrupts: his voice a high, tense rush. And Eliot—Eliot desperately wants to step in, to make it so—so that Quentin doesn't have to—but he can't because his mouth doesn't work right and his spine doesn't work right his voice doesn't work right and Quentin is already saying, "I don't actually really know anything about different churches, except what I learned in AP Euro, Martin Luther, um—War of the—uh": oh—_Quentin_, Eliot is thinking. Trying—trying to actually get—any part of himself. To respond to commands: "My family—well, my dad's family," Quentin is explaining, still about thirty percent too fast, "I think they were—Episcopalian? I think?": and of _course_ they were Episcopalian, Quentin, "or—Anglican? Is that the—I mean, my dad didn't—uh, go to church, really, I mean, none of us did, but—yeah, they are. Were. Episcopalian": he stops. Swallowing, face red. "I mean, I think so, um—I don't know for sure, I've never actually been to church. Like, for church-church, I mean. Just. Weddings. And—and funerals, but—um—a lot of those haven't been. Religious at all. But—"

And—God. Quentin. _No_, not—no one should make him talk about—so Eliot—is trying to focus on him. On him, or—or Eliot's own shattered overhard breathing: in. Out. Remembering—holding. Holding Quentin's hands. In the library, in Quentin's first semester, counting down from eight, because—

_He didn't want it to be_, Eliot wants to say. _He wanted—just what you gave him, Q, you_—

"—you know, you just sort of—weddings?" Quentin offers. He looks—stressed out. Slightly green, as he looks up at Eliot, eyes wide, like, _oh my God, what am I even_ saying_, are you hearing this_, help me, _please_: as Quentin rambles ever on, "there was—um, well, James, of course, but—there was also, uh, Emma, her wedding was—"

—_Episcopalian_, Eliot is thinking, _They're all fucking Episcopalians, Quentin_; as Quentin is saying, "...I'm not sure, but it was—in a church, and then, like—uh, my cousin Luke—well, actually, his wife's Muslim, so—they sort of did—this combined-ceremony thing where they—oh! Actually—now that I—I think my _mom_ got remarried in a UCC church? Maybe?" Staring desperately at Eliot with an expression that Eliot doesn't need to be psychic to read: _can you even_ see _me?_, as Quentin is saying, "I don't really, um—that is—" and Eliot—of _course_ he does, of _course_ he can see him; and that—something about that—makes Eliot's ribs unlock, finally. 

_Finally_: enough to let Eliot croak out, "Yeah. Molly's UCC."

"_Oh_," Quentin says, sounding—almost pathetically grateful: Eliot wants—. "_Good_. For a second I thought—"

Quentin bites his lip. Flushing a very, very bright pink.

Rachel tucks her hair back. "Who's Molly?" she asks, after a second; and Quentin says, "My stepmom"; and Eliot—

—has a horrible, nauseating wave of terror: he didn't even—_think_ about that, how could he have—

—but Rachel is—_nodding_, like her son's boyfriend explaining about—his mom's wife's religious affiliation is—a totally normal thing to do: and Eliot is still sort of—stuck on that, while Rachel is saying, "How long have they been married?"

Quentin shifts, a little. "I, um—about." He laughs, a little. "About eighteen years?" he tries. "I mean, uh." He squirms some more. "Not. Legally?"

Rachel nods again. "That's nice, though," she offers. "That she was—around, for so much of—so—it was like you got another parent": and Eliot just.

Stares.

Who, he is thinking, _Molly?_

Quentin is staring, too. "Who," he says, "_Molly_?"

Rachel ducks her head—

—and Quentin immediately stiffens, stammering: "Omigod, I—oh, no, uh—_sorry_, I—I mean, she's—uh, a good person and everything, she's just—": _—about as parental as a sack of bricks—_, Eliot is mentally supplying, _—also toxically judgemental about mental illness—and also—weirdly obsessed with birds—_; as Quentin is detouring: "—um—it's mostly—that is," Quentin explains, "I always lived with my dad," instead. 

That comes out sounding like an apology, too.

"Oh," Rachel says. Very quiet.

She sounds sad.

In the silence that follows, Eliot swallows. "I thought mostly you remembered the cake," he says, finally.

Quentin looks at him. Breathing in. 

After a second, Quentin says, "Yeah."

"From—your mom's wedding," Eliot clarifies. Possibly unnecessarily. He knows he sounds like he's been deep-throating a giant redwood; whatever. It's—on brand, at least.

Quentin's mouth quirks at the corner. 

"Well," he says, voice shifting. Going—deadly serious, the way Quentin always gets, when he's asking Eliot to laugh at him, as he says: "it was _really_ good cake."

Eliot swallows. Just—_looking_ at him, at Quentin looking back at him with those vast bottomless unflinching brown eyes; until Eliot—Eliot wants to fall at his feet. Bury his face in Quentin's warm, knobby knees.

"What kind?" Rachel asks, after a second. 

_What kind_? Eliot thinks, blank; then—oh. Right. The cake. The cake, at Val and Molly's wedding. Where Quentin (still almost-blond and excruciatingly adorable), had been wearing a depressingly well-tailored grey linen suit—Eliot's seen pictures, it was probably the last time Quentin owned a pair of pants that fit correctly—and a tiny, polka-dotted bow tie.

"Um—lemon," Quentin says, after a second; and then takes a breath. Looking back at Rachel. "I don't really remember the specifics," he says, still sounding— "I was seven," Quentin explains.

Apologetic.

"Oh," Rachel says. Nodding. 

She sips her coffee.

Quentin sips his coffee.

Eliot—

"Well," Rachel says, and takes a breath, "of course—if you can't tell apart a lemon chiffon and a Blitztorte we can't be friends, but—if you were seven, I suppose I'd be willing to let it slide."

"That's very generous of you," Quentin says. Matching her: voice light. Light. Light. "Though—um. What's a Blitztorte?"

"Going out on a limb," Eliot manages, "I'd guess it's a kind of lemon cake"; and Rachel smiles: an awful, painful thing, thin and cracked and stretched.

"He's right," she says. "It is."

Looking up, to meet Eliot's eyes.

"Sorry," Eliot says. Taking a breath: his hands. Still resting on the sink: he takes them back. "I—I think I'm a little": waves one, a little. He doesn't know what he means. _An asshole_, maybe. Or— "Nicotine deprived," he says, finally; patting his pockets—but when he'd gone out earlier, he'd still been in PJs, hadn't he; so—so his cigarettes. Are still in his coat. 

He looks at Quentin.

Quentin nods. "Go on," he says, pushing up to his feet: angel of mercy. "You made breakfast, anyway—I'll do the dishes"; and Rachel stands with him, saying, "I can help." 

Eliot nods. "Thanks," he says, meaning—everything; and Quentin's mouth curls up at the corner, as he nods.

Eliot goes to get his coat. His phone. Comes back to brush a hand over Quentin's back, before stuffing his feet into the hideous Uggs by the door. Trying not to—

Still standing beside the table, Rachel says, "I don't go to church." 

Voice quiet. 

Beside the sink. Quentin gets very, very still; and Eliot.

"I haven't been to church in years," Rachel adds, rough.

And Eliot—manages, after—some time, to nod. 

It shouldn't—_matter_, should it, it shouldn't—

"Rachel, could you bring over the mugs?" Quentin asks; then says, "More coffee, El?" and Eliot lets out a breath.

"Yeah," Eliot says. Voice scraping. "Um." 

He clears his throat. 

"Thank you," Eliot says, fumbling with the handle of the back door: Quentin doesn't say anything, but Eliot didn't really expect him to. The door comes open, but Eliot doesn't look up: just—just metal, paper-wrapped tobacco, brick beneath his fingers: lumbering, and alien, and huge. 

Outside, the snow whirls. Falls. Eliot smokes a cigarette, and then another. 

His phone clutched in his pocket, silent, with one hand. 

When he comes back inside, Quentin's alone: seated at the long narrow stretch of Eliot's desk with the gooseneck lamp craned over to drench the clock in light. Quentin has tipped it down onto its back panelling, while he pokes at the bottom of the railing around the bottom window with his screwdriver: careful. Gentle.

Eliot pulls one of the chairs from the table over. Pressing up close to Quentin's warm side. "I take it you still can't figure out the back?" Eliot asks; and Quentin shakes his head.

"It's weird, it's like—there's a whole second layer of paneling," Quentin says, "with no screws, that I can see, so—I feel like there has to be a catch of some kind? Somewhere? But, it's not on the back, as far as I can see, so—I thought, the bottom, maybe."

Eliot nods. Looking down at the glass stretched across the figures in the bottom window: the figures embracing, just inside the window. The half-bright glowing circle of the moon, its hands still stopped at a quarter to ten. And then—oh, Eliot thinks. A _cape_, I see: noticing, for the first time—God, it really _looks_ like cloth, doesn't it? Too much cloth for a cape, almost, really: it looks like the better part of an entire bolt of fabric, winding and rippling, half-alive. Eliot wonders how Matthew did that, honestly, just with wood: the liquid swathe of it, wrapped around a woman near the left-hand edge of the window, so it looks like the wind is blowing it out in a harsh skin-snapping gust. Tangling it up with the veil of her hair: heavy and dark, half-hiding her face. Eliot catches himself, just barely, before reaching out to touch: he'd probably ruin them, those delicate little figures, if he did make contact; and besides—he can't. They're behind glass. And—he'd leave fingerprints, wouldn't he. If he tried. 

He folds his hand back. His attention catching, again, on the cape. The heavy, ballooning weight of it, printed with—he squints, leaning in. Is that—an "X"? Or—

Eliot shifts. He hadn't noticed it before, but—_all_ the figures are marked, aren't they? With—the designs must be painted on, he thinks, though it looks more like—like something _stitched into_ them, but Eliot can't even imagine how Matthew did that kind of work with a _brush_, at that scale: the shingles of bark on the trees; their knobbly branches, no leaves; an owl, high in the sky, with feathery circles of light and dark mingling all over its wings; the tiny lumpy "X" shapes all over the woman's cape, except where it vanishes behind the billowing halo of her hair; the minuscule half-moon shapes and raindrops marked all over the clothes of the two figures embracing—

"It almost looks like wood-burning, doesn't it," Quentin says, quiet; and Eliot looks up at him, then back down at the embracing couple: a little drizzle amid swelling crescents, for the taller figure; for his companion, a tremulous summer thunderstorm's worth of raindrops, glinting amid microscopic moons. "It looks like it's a part of them," Quentin says, low. "But—I can't figure out what he would've used to do that."

Eliot nods, a little. "I keep thinking it looks almost like embroidery," he says, feeling—odd. Wrong. Half-hidden, half-shown; half-reprehensible, and the rest a lie— "Like—the fabric seems so real, you know?" He swallows. He just feels wrong, except—except that Quentin loves every part of him, doesn't he? So— "I've sewn a lot," Eliot explains. "Like, a _lot_, and—and the weird thing is that I—I can almost _feel_ it," he says, as Quentin nods. Wrapping an arm around Eliot's back: "The—_weight_ of it," Eliot says. Throat sore. "The way it—shapes itself around them, and looks like—"

—like—

"Like it's moving," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot nods. 

Feeling—

Quentin squeezes his shoulders, and Eliot takes a breath. Slow: tipping sideways, hunched up, to rest his head on Quentin's shoulder, which is.

Very low down.

"Where's my mom?" Eliot asks, quiet. Closing his eyes.

"Shower," Quentin says; and then kisses Eliot's forehead, as Eliot nods. "You okay?" Quentin asks, very quietly; and Eliot sighs.

"Yeah. I'm okay." He sighs. "It's just—you know."

"Yeah."

"Ugh, _families_," Eliot explains; and Quentin nods.

"Yeah, sweetheart," Quentin says, quiet. "I know": and so Eliot sits back up just enough to kiss him.

Just a little bit.

For a while.

Finally Eliot pulls back. Sighs. Folds an arm around Quentin's shoulders to squeeze him in tight; Quentin hums, and then brushes a kiss, soft, against the underside of Eliot's jaw, as the bathroom door squeaks open at the other end of the hall.

Eliot tenses, all over, but doesn't really—pull back. Not that far, anyway: and Rachel comes back into the kitchen from the hallway, her hair damp, dripping onto the shoulders of an ugly flannel shirt.

She smiles at him; and Eliot looks away.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Despite his months of intermittent squirming worry over Quentin, Eliot hadn't, exactly, been dreading _Christmas_—not Christmas for Christmas's sake, at least. But _spending his Monday off trapped in his apartment with his mother_, Eliot is rapidly coming to realize, is an entirely different prospect from _twenty-four hours extra of more-or-less uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact with Quentin_. It's selfish, probably, because Quentin seems—tense, and tired: curled up and guarded in that snail-shell way he can get: bent over the clock with various bits of the tiny set of jeweler's tools he'd brought packed into his carry-on, while Rachel crochets, sitting sideways on the sofa: folded up again, and lumpy with bedlinens. Outside the windows, the snow wraps itself around the building, tighter and tighter and tighter, while Eliot, perched on one kitchen chair with his feet on another, tries, and fails, to focus on his latest issue of _Frame_. He keeps getting distracted by—Rachel's yarn, multicolored, fleecy; Quentin's dumb shiny-soft hair; the fat bright moon-face of the clock. It's strange, Eliot thinks. He'd remembered it being more of a crescent, but really, it looks nearly half full.

"Okay, I have to—" 

Both Eliot and Quentin look up: across the living room, Rachel is pushing up to her feet.

"It just, it looks like—the snow's lightening, a little," she explains: waving a hand, awkward. "And—it's almost two, I—I'm just going to—go out. To see—a, um. To visit someone," she explains; and then ducks behind the fall of her hair.

Eliot sits back in his chair, a little. "Are you driving?" He looks up at the windows: it doesn't look like it's lightening up to him at all.

"No, I—she's out—um, right off the L." Rachel takes a breath. "I could use the walk, honestly, I'm not used to—being inside this much."

"Well, Seattle," Quentin agrees: it's certainly not the explanation Eliot would've come up with; but she nods, giving Quentin an almost painfully grateful look.

"Yeah," she says. "And—well, I don't want to drive in this either, so—"

"Yeah." Eliot pushes up to his feet. "Do you want to borrow my Ventra card?"

"Your what?"

"Card for the L," he explains. "It's easier than the app, if—"

"Oh," she says, and then laughs. "I—that didn't even occur to me. But—of course they wouldn't take tokens anymore, would they?"

"No," he agrees, going to get his wallet off the top of his dresser, in the closet. "They also no longer take take drachmas, or denarii, or—"

He stops. Trying to—he's not really up on old coins, but—

"Doubloons?" she calls after him; which startles him into a bark of laughter.

"No," he says, "no doubloons"; then clears his throat. Coming back. "At least—not usually," he says, "who knows what they accept, on holidays": and passes her his card.

"Thanks," she says, and gives him an awkward, lopsided smile, then looks back over at the sofa. Tucking her hair back. 

He swallows. "Um—if you pull the courtyard door shut slowly it won't latch all the way," he says, after a second. "Then—you won't need a key. To get in again." Honestly, it. Drives him crazy, usually, that everyone in the building does that, but— 

"Yeah," she says. "It—um. It was unlocked yesterday. And the gate was—"

"Propped open," he guesses, "with a rock"; and she nods: that one drives him crazy, too. "Lucky," he says; and then laughs.

She nods. "I—I guess I'd better take my crocheting," she says; and then goes over. Pulls open the top of her massive quilted tote bag. "It's—kind of a ride," she admits, stuffing her yarn back into it: green and blue and purple, flecked with pink. It's hideous. "I'll probably, um—I don't know when I'll be back," she says. "Before dinner, though, so—should I pick up—well. Everything's closed, probably, I guess."

Eliot crosses his arms over his chest, feeling—weird. Back prickling: Quentin behind him, at—his desk, working on—focus. Focus, Eliot. "I think we were just going to order Chinese," Eliot admits. "If that's okay? I'm not—"

He doesn't actually know, does he, whether or not Rachel likes Chinese food.

She looks up. "Yeah," she says. "Um—Chinese sounds good. I like—everything, basically"; and then laughs.

He nods. "Okay," he says. "That's. Good to know." 

She looks away again, hunching over her bag, as she nods; then reaches over for her sweater, which is a very ugly sort of muddy-brick color: he can't—watch her put that on, not with that shirt, Jesus, so he—goes back over to the table. Picks up his magazine again. Flips it open to—Christ, is this an article on boutique design for high-end wearable electronics, _really_? He grits his teeth and tries to focus, because this is a thing he should like—care about, professionally speaking, probably; not like—not watching Rachel slide her ancient blue jacket over everything and then shoulder her tote; or—or Quentin—Christ—a foot and half away, very very carefully unscrewing another one of the clock's teeny-tiny brass screws along its top even though they don't actually seem to _do_ anything and then very carefully dropping it into the cereal bowl he'd borrowed from the kitchen and then very very carefully saying, "Yeah, stay safe!" in a very careful voice as Rachel pulls her hair out of her collar, telling them, "Have a good afternoon," and then—

—leaves.

Eliot hears her feet in the hall. The door, clicking shut. Her steps on the stairs and then—and then—he can't hear it, when she shuts the courtyard door, but he can _feel_ it: the very edges of his telekinesis, two stories down, as Rachel ducks out into the snow, leaving Eliot and Quentin—

—alone.

Eliot is holding onto his magazine so tightly he's crumpling the edges of the pages. He isn't watching, when Quentin turns to look at him; but he—he can feel Quentin watching him. All that—fucking _attention_—

Eliot takes a breath. He blinks—slowly, carefully—and then turns the page.

"You," Quentin tells him, "are the world's most _colossal asshole_—"

—and Eliot can't even _fake_ it anymore: he shoves himself to his feet, just in time for Quentin to knock over Eliot's desk chair, trying to climb into Eliot's lap when his lap isn't even _there_ anymore: so Eliot catches him under his ass and staggers up against the jutting-out end of the wall between the hallway and the kitchen, kissing Quentin so hard he tastes blood, while Quentin claws frantically at his hair.

"How—" Eliot tries; but Quentin just—_bites_, Jesus, _pulling_—: Eliot groans and braces his knee against the drywall, dragging Quentin up higher while Quentin makes a high-pitched, frantic-animal noise, squeezing his knees around Eliot's hips: "How l—," Eliot tries; but Quentin kisses him before he can finish: sliding his long strong fingers down over the prickling-waving back of Eliot's neck and _squeezing_, his fingers dipping down into Eliot's collar: and Eliot—just has to kiss him back. Again. Right away. Quentin whines into his mouth, rubbing the back of Eliot's—neck, _shoulder_, fuck: and Eliot's—legs can't even— "How—_fuck_, Q": because—because he's just—he's just going to have to pin Quentin's wrists to the wall, isn't he, if Quentin's—going to just keep fucking—_doing_ that; but then—but then that's _worse_, isn't it, because then he's got—_Quentin_, _right fucking there_: all his weight between Eliot's body and the end of the wall, face red mouth wet eyes huge and dark and looking fucking—_starving_; arching as he pants and twists: flexing his hands so his wrists only-just-test the grip of Eliot's hands.

"Jesus." Eliot squeezes his eyes shut tight, breathing in: steady, slow. Steady, slow. Steady, slow—he does fucking—_meditate_, he's not—

"Are you going to make me beg?" Quentin asks, voice rough and wet: he sounds like—like he would probably very much like for Eliot to make him beg, but—

"How long do you think we have?" Eliot asks; and then risks—hesitantly, cautiously—opening his eyes.

Quentin is staring at him, disbelieving: Eliot tightens his hands on his wrists, trying—trying not to—to think about the way Quentin's always fuzzier than Eliot remembers him being: his scratchy chest and the thick soft pale-brown hair on his thighs and the way he's got his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and it shows off his surprisingly hairy forearms: and yes, fine, it's not like it's news to _Eliot_ that in drama school he screwed a lot of heavily manscaped hipster twinks, but—

"Eliot," Quentin says, "right now I don't care if your mom walks in on us lying unconscious and come-stained on your kitchen floor in nothing but a pair of nipple clamps and a sock, singular: if you don't fucking _fuck me_, I am going to set your apartment building _on fire_."

Eliot nods. Nods. Nodding—

"Do you _like_ this apartment?" Quentin asks him, eyebrows lifting in exasperation, and—Eliot. 

Does, so—

He isn't, actually, strong enough to carry Quentin: he tried, once, at a Physical Kids party: because they'd both been drunk and Quentin has always been—more or less incoherently hot for it so it'd seemed like a good idea until—well, basically right up until they fell down the stairs and it'd been _Penny_ who scrambled over to help, cackling the entire time he was blipping them into the Brakebills infirmary; and just because Quentin had kept trying to climb into Eliot's lap the entire time Lipson was stitching up the massively bleeding gash over his right ear doesn't mean Eliot's forgiven himself for dropping him. But the difference between drunk second-year Eliot and older, wiser, in-theory-an-actual-grown-up Eliot is that a) older, wiser Eliot has figured out exactly how many things don't—actually work, if you try to do them ironically; and b) older, wiser Eliot knows exactly how much of one (1) compact slightly-underfed nerd he actually can lift with his upper body; and exactly how much he's going to have to rest on his telekinesis. Quentin is _still_ incoherently hot for it, though: when Eliot gets his hands under his ass, shifting him up, and says: "Hands on my shoulders—no hair-pulling"; Quentin just mumbles, "Jesus," but he does it: loops his arms around Eliot's shoulders with his knees tight on Eliot's sides while—tasting ozone, and the smell of old books—Eliot eases back, slow, letting Quentin fall against—against every part of him: watching a hot, hectic flush creeping up from the stretched-out collar of Quentin's t-shirt. 

"Trust me?" Eliot asks.

Quentin swallows. Squinting, a little, as he asks: "How much telekinesis are you using?"

"You," Eliot tells him, "are spoiling for a spanking"; and Quentin starts laughing, breathless, as Eliot steps back from the wall: Quentin kissing him over and over and over and over, hot and wet and open enough that Eliot doesn't even—have to fake it, how it makes him stumble: feeling—dizzy on him. Lit up. Sky-high. He could—keep kissing him forever, he thinks: just—keep—_holding_—

"_Shit_," Quentin gasps, flinching; and Eliot—_does_ stumble, that time: probably would've—dropped him against—the fucking metal-frame footboard, if he hadn't—gasping, Eliot barely manages to catch himself, hand on the—knob at the corner of the bed, ice-cold in his hand, which feels—_coated_, eaugh— 

"Did you just _walk through the illusion_?" Quentin croaks, arms and legs trembling-tight around Eliot's body; and Eliot nods and nods, shuddering, peeling—peeling off his shirt, needing—needing that feeling _off of him_, but—but it doesn't matter if you just—forgot that you'd put up the Chaucer-McDonnell division and _crashed directly through it_, like an asshole: if you start pulling off your clothes while you're—fucking—lying on top of someone you've spent the past six months _not touching_—

Quentin whimpers, then shoves his hands between them, yanking Eliot's pants open; and Eliot—

—forgets. What was wrong, before Quentin was touching—

"No." Eliot kisses him. Swallowing: he pushes up, barely; his knees digging into the side of the mattress while his toes are slipping on the hardwood. Lying under him, Quentin looks almost comically wounded: Eliot slides his hand between Quentin's fingers and Eliot's open fly, and then staggers down to his knees. Pushing Quentin's shirt up over his belly, which is—soft and fuzzy and lovely: musky and trembling and _salty_, when Eliot licks into his navel. 

"El," Quentin says, voice cracking, "can I—_please_": with his hand just-brushing the edge of Eliot's hair; "Take these off for me," Eliot murmurs, tugging at Quentin's jeans pocket, "and we'll talk"; "I hope you know that I hate you," Quentin grumbles; but he wriggles out of his jeans, doesn't he. Boxer-briefs, too, because Quentin's just— "Efficient," Eliot says approvingly. "Good boy."

Quentin squirms, a little: wonderful. "Can I pull your hair or not?" he demands. He's flushing hugely, beautifully: all over his face and down his belly and thighs: if Eliot pushed his t-shirt up his chest would be bright red too, wouldn't it. Something to look forward to.

"In this position, I think the standard question is about whether or not I'm going to suck it," Eliot says, eyeing Quentin's cock, which is stocky and solid and _wet_, God, he always gets so wet, doesn't he, he doesn't even need—fuck, Eliot's mouth is watering. Quentin's just—ruined him. Hasn't he.

"Well, I already know you're going to suck it," Quentin explains; and Eliot looks up at him.

"_Am_ I?" he asks. Mildly, nearly; and then—fits his hand around him; and Quentin shivers. Black-eyed. _So_ wet, Eliot thinks: velvety-hot and hard-hard-hard and so—fucking wet that when Eliot smears his thumb over the tip—fuck. He can't—he _wants_ to suck it, Jesus: Saturday night he'd fallen on it like a starving man and Quentin had moaned and squirmed and whined and pulled and pulled at Eliot's hair until Eliot'd caved and turned around so Quentin could get his mouth on _him_, like—like 69ing was—was ever as good in real life as it seemed in porn or fantasy but—but not even forty-eight hours later Eliot's pretty sure it _had_ been, hadn't it? Quentin limp with blissed-out exhaustion, eyes closed while he sucked Eliot in that uniquely zen cocksucking way of Quentin's, with his dick salty-heavy-thick filling him up pressing against—the inside of Eliot's cheek—dragging over his tongue, while—while the ravening-clawing frantic—_monster_ that—that lives just inside Eliot's ribs, _always_, was just—quiet, _quiet_: just lying there trembling as Eliot let Quentin fucking _soak into him_: shuddering. Shuddering: saturated with Quentin's saliva and Quentin's sweat and his—his _bone-deep fucking certainty_, with the warm-round familiar smell of his hair and the taste of his precome that was like—fucking, _coming home_, Jesus, speaking of things that'd been unbearable to fucking—two-years-ago Eliot—: and—and Eliot pets the heart of his palm over the wetslick head of Quentin's dick, which he is, very deliberately, not sucking, remembering how then, on Saturday, Quentin—shivering all over with his cock in Eliot's mouth while Eliot nudged his against the softhot back of Quentin's lovely throat—Quentin had reached down, blind and fumbling, to hold Eliot's hand.

"If you _aren't_ going to suck it," Quentin asks, on Christmas, 2017: propped up on his elbows, voice unsteady as he asks, "what—what exactly _are_ your plans, down. Down there."

Eliot drags his eyes up—up—_up_: stroking him slow-slow-slow, while Quentin shivers all over: chin lifting, just barely. God, he's red.

"Do you want me to suck it?" Eliot asks. Casually. Casually, of course: he's trying to play it cool. (He might be failing.) But—

"Mostly I want you to put your dick in me," Quentin tells him, dark-eyed and gravelly, and Eliot—

—swallows. "Q," he starts; but Quentin shakes his head, hard.

"I already got the, 'Oh, but it's big, it's been so long, are you sure you can handle it?' lecture yesterday morning, remember?" Quentin puts his hand over Eliot's. Stilling him. "I mean, it's big," Quentin says, "but it's not _that_ big, and—"

"It's big," Eliot protests.

"—besides, Margo made me buy a dildo, so—if I had to endure that trauma I was going to—get some fucking _good_ out of it, God damn it, so—"

"It's big," Eliot repeats; and Quentin pauses. Eyes crinkling up at the corners.

"Yes," he agrees, voice serious. "Your dick is fucking enormous, sweetheart"; and desperate with adoration Eliot crawls up on top of him, pushing up Quentin's t-shirt while Quentin is reaching down to get Eliot's fly open again. Which—

"I was always—fully prepared to fuck you, you know," Eliot explains, a little unsteadily; "Yeah, I know," Quentin says, "but—we're probably kind of on a timeline, here, so—if we could sort of." Taking a breath. "_Move it along_, or—": so Eliot reaches out for the nightstand and Quentin mumbles, "Ohthankgod," scrambling to peel his t-shirt up from his armpits and off.

"Roll over," Eliot says, voice thick: and Quentin—Quentin, who has literally never done anything anyone told him, like, literally ever, except, except when Eliot just—: _that_ Quentin. That precise, particular ornery little shit: Eliot tells him, _Roll over_, and Quentin just. 

Rolls over.

Eliot squeezes the edge of the drawer of the nightstand. Pressing his face against the back of Quentin's neck, breathing in: "Q—I'm gonna." Eliot swallows. Rubbing his face into Quentin's skin. "I'm gonna eat you out for a while," he manages, finally. Taking a breath, as Quentin reaches back. Slotting his fingers up into Eliot's hair.

"You okay?" Quentin asks, low; and Eliot swallows, thick. Nodding, the tip of his nose rubbing Quentin's skin, bumping over his spine.

"I'm just—going to come really embarrassingly quickly," Eliot admits, "unless. I—and besides," he adds, "it _is_ pretty big."

Quentin presses his face against the pillow, like that'd make it even a little bit less obvious that he's laughing at him. "It is," he agrees. "It's so big, El."

"See, if I didn't know that my cock was, actually, objectively significantly larger than average, I think this sort of sarcasm would probably ding my self-esteem," Eliot tells him, cracking the lube open. Slicking his fingers up, as he ducks down to nuzzle between Quentin's shoulderblades, right over the incredibly tacky tattoo that he'd brought back from Brakebills South, which Eliot simultaneously loathes on principle and also finds inexplicably, enragingly sexually attractive. When Eliot kisses it, right at the nexus of the sigil, the magic tingles, a little, just like always; and Eliot's mouth on it makes Quentin shiver. Just like always. Eliot closes his eyes. 

"And—since you do know that," Quentin says. A little—breathless. "About. Your giant dick."

Right. His giant dick. Which Quentin was—insufficiently respectful of? "Yeah," Eliot manages. Barely. "I mean." He swallows. "You're cute," Eliot says, "and you take it pretty well," kissing vertebra—after vertebra—after vertebra— "so I guess I can let it slide."

"When it comes to your dick, your self-esteem couldn't be dented by a Mack truck," Quentin says, and then— "...I take it pretty well, huh?"

"Yeah," Eliot mouths. "Pretty well": and Quentin flails a hand back to grab Eliot's hair, and then then takes a breath, slow, when Eliot kisses the small of his back.

"I give you... like, a B+," Eliot says, "A-, maybe": which is just—a massive, shameless lie; but Quentin's just—snickering, wriggling under him as Eliot slides down a little further, so he can bite Quentin's left asscheek. 

"That's—unh." Quentin squirms. "Good effort, room for improvement?" he offers; and then shifts around to grab—

"Alwa—none of that, thank you," Eliot says, stopping Quentin from shoving the pillow under his hips: "Up on your knees, c'mon, don't be lazy"; to which Quentin mutters, "Oh, Jesus, just—fuck you completely," but he pushes up onto his knees, doesn't he. 

"Hope so," Eliot says; and Quentin's breath catches.

His whole back. Arching, a long, satin-smooth undulating line; on his knees shoulders bent forward, as he—he's moving already, isn't he: those little eager half-stopped half-yearning little—jerks—of motion—, as Quentin is rubbing his forehead against the backs of his folded-up solid hands, waiting with his ass up, for Eliot.

"Good," Eliot says, quiet; and Quentin—shivers. Eliot swallows. "Perfect," he corrects, lower; and then—

"El," Quentin gasps; and Eliot nods. 

Nods, nuzzling: just above Quentin's tailbone. "Talk to me," Eliot says, quiet; and Quentin groans.

"Mm—I—"

"I wanna hear it," Eliot explains; and then—God he can't—_stand_ it, so he licks, once, helpless and Christ that taste. Not even—_into_ him, not yet— "I want," Eliot explains, heart pounding: squeezing. Squeezing. "To hear you talking to me."

Quentin huffs. "About what," he says: already a little breathless, Christ, and they haven't even really—_started_ yet. "Like," Quentin asks, half-hollow, pressing—back: "your giant dick?"

"I mean." Eliot swallows. "It _is_ a subject we're both interested in": thumbing Quentin's ass open wide as Quentin lets out a _very_ gratifying moan. "Hmm?" Eliot asks.

"Fuck." Quentin's ass jerks, as Eliot noses again at the soft-soft musky-dark skin under his tailbone, breathing in: Quentin, Quentin, Quentin. "I mean." Quentin shivers, swallowing audibly. "You could just ask," he croaks. "If you want me to just—porn-talk about your huge cock—"

"Yeah," Eliot breathes. Feeling— "Yeah, tell me about my huge cock, baby": tasting—Quentin. Quentin. Quentin: even before Quentin mutters, "This is a lot fucking easier when you're actually—_using_ it on me"; just as Eliot actually—finally—_licks_: tasting QuentinQuentinQuentin as beneath him Quentin takes a huge, shaky breath. His spine dipping and arching like—like a wave.

A wave. 

"I'm gonna," Eliot says, "I'm gonna put it in you," and then—kisses him; and Quentin jerks. All over. "Please?" Eliot asks, quiet. "Tell me"; and then—kisses him again, with—his pulse in his throat and his tongue and his—hands—

"Fuck," Quentin says, thick; and then takes a breath. "God, you—your tongue, Jesus, El, I always—" Tasting—Eliot swallows; as Quentin, shuddering, groans; and then Eliot whispers: "Please," and then kisses him again, wet wide-open, pressing his tongue against the soft-giving clench of Quentin's burning body, while Quentin squirms and pants and finally _finally_ fucking gasps out, "It's like notes," clumsy; and Eliot hums, encouraging, and then—pushes—his tongue inside him, and Quentin just.

Shudders. 

Just opening up: _fuck_.

Eliot licks out, heart pounding: and Quentin arches, making a noise that's halfway to a sob. "Like notes how," Eliot reminds him, and then— 

"Like you're—fuck this is embarrassing," Quentin croaks, hips jerking, which is—Christ so good as Quentin gasps and wriggles his ass back against Eliot's face as Eliot licks back over him dipping into him licking him softhardsoft battering soft and Quentin says, all in a rush, "like you're leaving me notes on, on how to do it," then squirms: "like—you w-want me to remember, how. How to make room for you, Jesus": Quentin says; and then laughs, sounding—dizzy, nearly: "for your huge dick, _fuck_, I want it, I want it so fucking bad, this is going to make you unbearable, isn't it": and—God, Eliot can't—any other time, he thinks, and he'd be able to fucking—convince Quentin, at least, that he didn't want it about—a thousand times as badly as Quentin, probably, but—no. God. Just as. He's just—he's _here_, isn't he, _they're_ here, and Eliot—

"I'm already unbearable," he says, even though—he has to _stop_, no, _wrong_ and Quentin is gasping, gasping, jerking into his hands like a fish on a line so Eliot bends back in: his nose half-flattening against fur and wet and bone with the round biteable meat of Quentin's ass against his jaw and his hands and his cheeks while Eliot eats at the musky-hot animal core of him where Eliot is going to get him so, so wet and so, so open and then put _all of himself_ inside _all of Quentin_ and Eliot pulls back, nearly dizzy from lack of bloodflow, and asks, "Is it—"; and Quentin reaches down to scrape his knuckles over Eliot's neck. Grab his hair. Dragging— 

"Yeah," Quentin is saying, breathless. He laughs. "C'mon. Bring it." Breathing in, deep, as he drags at Eliot's hair and tells him, "Go on, honey, get—get me ready for you, _please_": as Eliot closes his eyes, not even—_addressing_ the fucking "bring it," even though—_Quentin_—because—because Eliot is doing—more, more important—the most important thing, right now: kissing and kissing and _kissing_ him, rubbing—his fingers, just barely, against the wet of his tongue at—at the eagersofthot clench of Quentin's body where Quentin— "I want you so badly," Quentin says, very low: arching— "unnh—", as Eliot squeezes Quentin's ass so hard his wrist cramps, just—rubbing—rubbing his thumb over— "oh—yeah. _Fuck_," Quentin gasps, shivering; "I—Jesus, El, don't—_stop_, don't stop don't stop just—_tongue_, _fuck_": a frantic, wobbling rush, before Eliot'd even—realized he'd started pulling away. So. So he doesn't, doesn't stop, just— "_Fuck_," Quentin groans, as Eliot licks around him over him _into_ him as deep as he can go: Quentin's whole body jerking, hard, head to toe. "Jesus, that's—fuck that's good I, ngh—that's—El, it's—_Eliot_—"

Eliot kisses him. "Yeah," he says, thick; and Quentin moans, low and rough and helpless. "Tell me, I—what do you need," Eliot asks, "I—you can have it, I—_Q_, I mean it, p-_please_": around the tremulous wet-ragged squelch of his heart.

Kneeling. In front of him under him t-touching him: Quentin is shivering: constant, uncontrollable: rubbing—rubbing his face on the back of his hand where it's still just—flattened out against the mattress as he drags his forehead against it over and over and over: his whole body flushed and arching, arching in that quivering sensation-starving animal way that—that just fucking _staggers_ Eliot, that Quentin lets him see it, every _fucking time_, just—

"You," Quentin says, thick: his fingers. Tangling up, in Eliot's hair: awkward angle. They make it work. "I want you," Quentin says, unsteady, "I want—your huge fucking dick, I want—I want you to put your fingers in me until—until I can't stand it anymore, I want it—right f-fucking now—": and Eliot—grabs for the lube so fast he's pretty sure he pulls a lat and—and slicks up his shaking fingers, heart pounding: "—and then," Quentin is gasping out, "I want—I want you to—to put your fingers—Christ—_long_, go—go deep inside me I can't—fucking—_think_, just—just want to—to _live_ like that oh God Christ—" as Eliot is just—just pressing two right into him where Quentin is—already so wet and so hot from Eliot's mouth: the plush velvety magma-hot clench of him: "Yes," Quentin is saying, "like—like that—no, h-harder, I don't—I can't. _Handle_ it": low and rough, "wanting—I want you to t-touch me": so Eliot touches him; and Quentin groans.

"More?" Eliot asks; and Quentin laughs, a high, frantic sort of sound, then gasps out, "I always fucking—want _more_—"

"M'gonna give it to you," Eliot reminds him; and Quentin nods, and nods, and nods. "What next?" Eliot whispers. Petting—_petting_— "What'm I gonna give you next, baby?"; and then bends back down to—to _lick_—and—and—

The noise Quentin makes.

Christ. Must be real, Eliot thinks, couldn't—couldn't imagine that: and—and couldn't've imagined—

Quentin's voice: "I want—"; Eliot shivers. "I want—to feel. Your weight, _on_ me," Quentin says, in a leaded, half-dazed voice; "I want—I w—you, press—pressed all over me, on—on my back": so—so Eliot kisses him one last frantic starving time, just at the root of his fingers, where Quentin is—opening up for him, just—just fucking _making room_ for him, trembling; and then then Eliot kneels up, curving—curving the—half-disintegrated vibrating-hum that Eliot somehow calls a body over—over the hot solid lovely arch of Quentin's sweaty back: "And I want you to kiss me," Quentin says: he sounds—drunk, almost; drugged, very nearly; his face scarlet, shining with sweat, when he turns so that Eliot can kiss him. Lick his mouth open, open, _open_ like Eliot can—like Eliot can pet him opener and opener and opener: tasting Quentin's tongue with all of Quentin's salt-sweet musky skin still fucking—all over the insides of their mouths: three fingers in him to the root and—and barely any fucking resistance, _Christ_, when Eliot rubs his thumb against him, too, pulling at the rim of him; and Quentin just. Sighs. Breathing out, long and slow, as he rubs his cheek against Eliot's. "More lube," Quentin tells him, and Eliot nods nods nods fumbling for the lube in—a tangle of magic and body because—because _yes_, more _lube_, he can—he can get more lube and he can get him wet, he can get him so so wet and he can kiss him with his weight on him pressed all over him while he—while he—fingers him getting him wetter and wetter until they can't fucking _stand_ it anymore—

"And then," Quentin whispers, "then I want you to put your cock in me": with—with his hand. Reaching back, to—to pet at. At Eliot's fingers, sloppy-slick, just where they slip inside him, fuck, _Christ_: as Eliot presses their faces together. Nodding; as Quentin says, "I want you touching every part of me," in—in that low certain way he gets: "inside," Quentin adds, "and out": this close his face a sweaty blur of flushed skin and stubble, blinking his bottomless black all-pupil eyes: his left hand dragging Eliot's wet left—_out_: up to his belly, his chest: to settle, knotted together, over the relentless thunder of Quentin's warm heart.

"I want to be touching every part of you," Eliot confesses; and then—kisses him, while Quentin is holding Eliot's left hand stilled—caught—: so that Quentin, reaching between them to drag Eliot's cock overagainst him, overagainst him: breath catching—_catching_—can choose—choose just when to—_pushback_, shivering, which—which is—fuck, Q needs to—slow down doesn't he because—because the thing is—_the thing fucking is_, just. That—that _Eliot's dick is, actually, kind of annoyingly large_: thick and long and heavy, which like, sure, that's great in porn and everything but _Margo_ had taken one look at it and said, _Well_, that's _going to require some creative problem solving_, and Eliot had just been—so fucking _relieved_, because—because he'd had a lot of lousy sex in his first few months of college where they went too fast and someone stopped returning his texts or had to take notes standing up in the back of the Spanish III for a week and a half or had to go to Student Health with an ice pack or something and so Eliot's _never_ just—_expected_ that—anyone should just—be able to take it, or whatever, he'd never've—expected that of Quentin, or—or _made_ him, _Jesus_, or even really wanted to—to _ask_ him, at first, because—Eliot fucking _loves_ oral and getting handjobs from magicians is basically a religious experience (—and Eliot would know—) and it shouldn't—it doesn't _matter_, not really, it _never_ mattered, except—except that _Quentin_—

—_Quentin_—

"Hey," Quentin whispers, squeezing Eliot's hand—pinned—_held_—tight to his hammering heart as Quentin murmurs, "You still—on board, or—"

—except that it has always, _always_ mattered to Quentin.

"Y—eah." Eliot swallows. Ducks his face down. "Just—you're okay?"

"Mm—." Quentin drops his head back onto Eliot's shoulder. He's laughing at him: that shining face, his crinkled-up eyes: Eliot can always tell, can't he. "I think you better—be gentle with me," he whispers, and Eliot's chest clenches, his hand around Quentin's hand.

"I can be _so_ gentle," Eliot tells him: shifting, a little, just—just barely. Pulling back. "I can—go slow. So—so slow, you'll barely even notice—": and Quentin starts laughing, taut and breathless.

"Y—eah." While Eliot kisses the little soft-scratchy nexus of ear and throat and jaw. "I'm definitely—I definitely don't want to _notice_ it, or anything," Quentin agrees, while Eliot is steadying Quentin's hip, just giving him—just a little, just—the first inch, inch and a half, maybe: the both of them—shivering all over, while Quentin clutches Eliot's lead hand to his sternum and Eliot just—justbarely fucks into him, just—just a very. little bit. at a time. "Tonight I definitely—," Quentin manages, "I—yeah, I want—to be writing: Dear Diary, today—Eliot may've, um—"

Head dropping forward, as he—gasps.

"Too much?" Eliot whispers; and Quentin squeezes, squeezes: shaking and shaking his head. 

"No," Quentin says. "I just—make me. Write, um—" Shifting, a little,as—Eliot squeezes his hip. Thinking: _slow. Slow, baby. Slow._ "Eliot," Quentin says. Thick. 

"Yeah." Swallowing.

Quentin nods. Pushing— "D-dear diary," he says, "to—unh. T-today Eliot may've, um. Taken me s—fuck, Christ, what're you gonna let me push against?"

"Taken me savagely," Eliot suggests, "against the headboard—": mouthing at—at—at his neck, his shoulder as, as, as Quentin—_shudders_, honest to God _all_ fucking _over_, and Eliot—can't—

"Um—fuck, that's—like, please so _yes_, against the, the, except—I can't reach," Quentin explains, very unsteadily: but Eliot is—moving, already: pulling the tip of his dick back out of him for the briefest most torturous half-instant feeling—half-blind, animal, the thinnest possible skin of his self over chaos, except—except that he's still shuffling their knees together up the mattress when frantic-panting Quentin reaches back down between them to get Eliot back inside him and Eliot—can't—

—he can't—

(An aside: Eliot had, actually, resisted the worst demons of his nature, mostly, or—for a while, at least: he hadn't fucked Quentin and left him eight days before the Trials, or convinced Quentin that sucking Eliot's dick would somehow mysteriously get Quentin straight As on his midterms, or—but. But. But he—he _had_ kissed him, hadn't he: Eliot had kissed Quentin in Week 7 when Quentin had first asked him and—and then he'd just—he'd just. Kept _kissing_ him, hadn't he—) 

—even _stand_ it: pushing—_in_ while Quentin groans folding forward with his hands knotting up on Eliot's conveniently-curliqueued bedframe, pushing _back_.

"Jesus," Eliot gasps, "fuck—slow down Q, I don't want—"; and Quentin starts—fucking—_laughing_ again—

"Fuck, if you think you're going to—"

"—to _hurt_ you—": while Quentin reaches back, and touches, lovingly, the burning edge of Eliot's face.

"Gimme all of you, sweetheart," Quentin says, very very soft; which is—one _low fucking blow_, so Eliot—

—gives him. Just the very littlest bit—

—more—

"Is that—" Eliot asks; as Quentin. Shudders: head dropping forward; nodding, nodding, nodding. 

"Y-yeah," Quentin's hands. Flexing, on the bedframe; as Eliot fucks maybe just—just the first couple inches into him, just barely, and—more lube. More _lube_, Eliot reminds himself, reaching for—as Quentin, breathing in deep, says, "—still not—so's you'd notice," nosing back for a kiss. Smiling; breathless.

"I hate you," Eliot whispers. Rubbing their faces together: more lube wet-hot soft skin so much, _God_ just—perfect, Christ: fitting back just just just a little bit—_deeper_, just a little bit; as Quentin, shivering, twists to press their mouths together hollow as Quentin whispers, "I know, I know that about you"; as frantic Eliot crushes Quentin back against his cracked-open chest with. His hips, working with—with _Quentin's_ hips, those soft, slow, shifting shivers that start somewhere in between their bodies and ripple—everywhere—_out_—Eliot blinking sweat out of his eyes and pressing—not deeper not deeper just more—more—_more_—as Quentin breathes with him, is pressing—a little bit—_back_.

"Still—okay," Eliot asks; and Quentin nods. Bites Eliot's bottom lip and _fuck_, that always— "Not—remarkable," Eliot asks, just—checking; and Quentin shakes his head. Shakes his head.

"Not even—getting a mention," Quentin says, and then starts laughing, dropping his head back: "iPhone calendar," he says, "two to—to—"

"To five," Eliot suggests: feverish, frantic; "Jesus Christ yes five," Quentin gasps, "fuck me for hours," rubbing—the sides of their skulls together: "two to five, 'Eliot—takes me savagely against the—the headboard, in—in our bed' Christ El I need—" and Eliot twists, kissing—kissing him, as into the edge of his mouth Quentin moans: his skin prickled up all over, everywhere they're touching. "And—nhh—and then," Quentin pants: shivering, shivering, "give me—a little, a little—mnnh—more—" so Eliot gives him—just—just the littlest bit more as Quentin's shoulders ripple, hands flexing as Quentin gasps out: "so then—Dear D-diary today Eliot—and I—had plans in the afternoon, but—but I think he—must've. Canceled on me or something don't remember, Christ, fuck—El—why can't—," Quentin's voice going plaintive, stretched thin, as he pleads, "why—why can't I _suck it too_?"; and _Jesus_: Eliot groans, folding over his back, pulling—pulling Quentin—'s moaning arching body uptightclose against him, trying—trying frantically not to—

(—so. so. so back in second year Eliot had—kissed Quentin, Exhibit A, but he hadn't fucked him, had he? He'd had. Self-control, or something, he'd managed to—to keep on—_not_ fucking Quentin, right up until—until the Wednesday of Week 10, when Eliot had come back from the meeting with the Dean and the entire rest of the second year class, seasick and heartsore and more than a little bit drunk, and then gone down to the end of the second-floor west hall in the Physical Kids Cottage and crawled, aching all over, into Quentin's bed, where Quentin—who had, back in first year, persistently slept in boxer briefs and, usually, socks; it was a thing; Eliot hated it and also, not infrequently, masturbated about it in the shower—had been asleep, just in his underwear, under the lump of his duvet, lying on his left side, his body soft and warm and—and _familiar_, despite—despite how—; and Eliot had just—got into bed with him for the explicit purpose of continuing to not fuck him just like he'd done basically every night for the past two and a half weeks; and then when Quentin had stirred when Eliot wrapped an arm around him, Eliot had settled his hand over Quentin's lovely warm wet inviting open mouth and said, _Listen. I need us to—just. Stop fucking—pretending we're dating—no, _no_, I—I_ know, _Q, I just—I just need you to listen to me_, he'd said, aching. _Just for a minute. Please_. And then—then Quentin had—unbelievably, Eliot had thought, with touching naïvete—actually lain still, and listened. If Eliot had, at the time, known Quentin for more than two and a half months, he would've been able to recognize this for the total fake-out New-England-WASP un-debate-team tactic it absolutely was, where Quentin listened politely and nodded along to all your arguments and then immediately proceeded to passive-aggressively behave, twenty-four hours a day, like you were _completely full of shit_, but—but the point. The _point_ is that Eliot didn't, actually, fuck Quentin before the Trials, despite Quentin having about negative sixty-seven percent subtlety about his overwhelming interest in getting Eliot to do so; and the first time they'd actually—well, fine, the first time they'd had sex had been in the middle of December, when Quentin first came back to campus, punched Eliot in the arm, told him he was a manipulative self-centered asshole, and also what did he think Quentin was going to do, honestly? be so strung out on cock he failed the Trials, or something? and then more or less climbed him, which. Eliot had not. Been in much of a position to object, honestly, at that point—which basically meant that Eliot had spent the first half of finals in a fugue of Adderall and runic flashcards and then the second half—)

—trying not to come in the first twenty-seven milliseconds he's actually managed to get—more than the first three inches _inside_ him, _fuck_, in—six _fucking_ months—

"—I. I want—_El_," Quentin gasps: frantic, while Eliot—Eliot rubs his face against the back of his neck and whispers, "I've got you, baby"; and Quentin. Sobs. Shuddering, all over: Eliot. Probably won't survive, unless— "Dear Diary," Eliot reminds him; and Quentin—_moans_: with Eliot trying to—to— "What're you gonna write tonight, hm?" Eliot whispers: pleading; kissing—_kissing_ him—_Christ_, as— 

"I." Quentin swallows. Shifting, a little: he shivers; and Eliot flails out again for the lube. 

"Two to five," Eliot reminds him: slicking up—Quentin shivers, and Eliot whispers, "So I—I've got time, baby, I—I can get the rest of it into you, if you want me to": and Quentin flails a hand back, frantic, to grab at Eliot's hair. "Yeah?" Eliot asks. Nuzzling. Gentle. Just—_drenched_ with it: "Two to five, iPhone calendar": trying—trying not to—"Scheduled: 'Eliot'," Eliot says, "'puts his cock all the way into me'": as Quentin takes a deep, slow breath; ribs pressing sweatily back into Eliot's chest as Eliot kisses his earlobe and whispers, "Show As: Free": and Quentin—jerks. All over, _fuck_; and then—

—starts laughing.

"Yeah?" Eliot asks. Feeling—

"Yeah," Quentin whispers. "You're gonna. Take me savagely against the headboard and I'm so not busy m'even—gonna, like. Do my taxes, maybe": and Eliot nods.

"Early for it," he notes; and Quentin nods. Nods.

"Yeah," he says. "But since—I'm not. Busy, or anyth—"

His voice stops, all at once: head dropping. Eliot blinks—blinks sweat out his eyes and—and wraps—wraps himself t-tighter around him, holding him—_up_—

Against him, Quentin moans, wordless. His hands—_twisting_—

"You're not busy—," Eliot supplies; and Quentin arched up under him makes a dazed, raw noise, his hips—fucking back, _fuck_— "—while he," Eliot explains; and then. A breath, unsteady and deep, before he can manage, "—took." 

Barely—able to even—

"...hobbits?" Quentin asks, sounding—very confused; and Eliot—fuck, Christ—manages to—shake his head, somehow.

"Diary," Eliot reminds him, "calendar. You. Um." He blinks against—the sweat stinging his eyes, trying to—shift oh God and "Can't tell, if I—took," Eliot explains, "you savagely, against—"

—as he is. Watching, Quentin's lovely hairy-backed hands, tightening—the, the tendons, shifting—under his skin like—Eliot is—shifting inside his skin like—Quentin under his skin as Quentin—swallows, wet and noisy, and then agrees, "Can't—even tell," as he—_braces_, pushing—pushing back against—and Eliot—

—Eliot has to—to focus on—on the—

(—the—the second half. Of finals, fall semester, his—his second year, because—because. Yes the less said about the second half of Eliot's finals fall semester of his second year, the better, probably, but—while he'd—he'd definitely never—say that he _did_ lie awake for the entirety of two nights running, and then spend the next two in a frantic spasm of something that definitely _wasn't_ crying himself to sleep in the dark behind seven layers of silencing wards while all the adrenaline of the semester wore off because Margo had swanned off to Encanto Oculto without him and in her absence Eliot was rapidly being brought to the realization, not for the first time, that he basically didn't actually _like_ much of anyone else and of the, like, three non-Margo people he _did_ actually sort of like, one had dropped out of Brakebills after passing her Trials in a fucking incandescent Erin Brockovich moment of protest that Eliot was going to fucking applaud forever, sure, but now Alice was in Brooklyn plumbing the secrets of library science; lesbian sex; good for her, whatever—)

"—Dear Diary," Quentin repeats, thick; then gasps out, "—m-more, pl—_ease_—" and Eliot—

(—Eliot couldn't even _text_ her without leaving the campus wards and since the other two people he kind of sort of didn't hate were a) a traveler who liked to drink with Eliot [—shivering—] but had basically been over his bullshit from more or less the second he'd shown up on campus and b) a high-strung disaster of a supernerd that Eliot i) had voluntarily declined to fuck, continually and repeatedly, over the course of more or less three continuous months; ii) had _flat-out rejected_ shortly before collaborating with the sadistic machinery of academia to send him to fucking [—_shivering_—] _Antarctica_, where Eliot—)

—_grabs_—shaking all over as he fixes a hand on Quentin's hip to hold him still while—while—Quentin is—shoulders arched like a bow under him braced—against the headboard, while he is making—that _fucking_ noise, that high ragged desperate gasping whine that—that Quentin always makes, when he's—when he's just—just trying to remind his body how to _open up for Eliot_ Jesus _fucking_ Christ: and Eliot—clutches at him and pants against the taut salty slope of Quentin's lovely fair shoulder and lets—lets Quentin just—just open—open up the way—the way he, he always—does, when Eliot is—is where—where _Quentin_—

(—wasn't—where—where his feet were probably always cold and he also probably—must've—completely hated the, the, the uniforms because they were wool and sort of scratchy and his skin was really sensitive and he, he, _already_ spent half his life locked in a tragic sensory war with his—fuck, his fucking—_clothing_; and—and—and also who Eliot iii) was very possibly in love with—so—so at the end of fall term, second year, Eliot was realizing that he was alone on campus with nothing but two Bs, a B-, a C in Cryptozoology though seriously fuck Cryptozoology, and an A- in his seminar on Trans-Planar Sigilistic Materials Theory that he'd only scraped because he knew he desperately needed it for Lu to not rescind her apprenticeship offer and also because the sweaty sixty-year-old off-campus consultant who took six hours a week off from Mueser Rutledge to led the seminar was hot for Eliot's body—so—so—so then when Quentin had finally gotten back from Antarctica and been very, very mad for about four point eight seconds and then very, very horny for about seventy-two hours, what was Eliot supposed to do, _not_ fuck him? of _course_ he was going to fuck him, like—)

—like he—_needs_ him: so as Quentin makes—an almost fatally attractive little whine, just—folding open for him: ass up, head down, the long salty lines of his back and his arms and his—body folded up-open under-around him as Eliot just—sinks—and sinks—and _sinks_, until—until Eliot—until Eliot feels like—like his heart—isn't even _connected_ to him anymore, like— 

"Christ—"

"Y'feel," Quentin slurs, "s—good": with—the liquid slippery-hot slope of his back, arching—up into Eliot's hollow ribs as Quentin just—_groans_ and Eliot tries to remember every time he's ever been a moron with Quentin—of which there are, thankfully, many—to try to keep himself from coming: _Dear—Diary_, Eliot thinks, frantic, _today I lost control and_ broke my boyfriend with my dick_, two to five p.m., show as: free_—: feeling _desperate_, trying to—to remember how—how—how yes, of—of course, of course the first time they had had sex was—in December, but—but Eliot had—he hadn't actually— (Quentin whines, squirming, and Eliot—tries not to die: thinking. About—) —about how he didn't, actually, get around to, like, _sticking his cock inside Quentin_ until—like, March, or something, or—okay, well, maybe more like February, or—okay, fine, it was New Year's Eve, but—the point. Is. That Eliot hadn't actually _wanted_ to like—shred the tattered remnants of Quentin's heterosexuality with his dick—

"El," Quentin says, thick, "mm—I need—_more_, mm—_Eliot_—"

"Fuck," Eliot gasps: heartfelt; and then puts—

—he puts—his _hands_, on Quentin's—

—wrists: and Quentin sobs, pushing back; and Eliot presses his face against Quentin's shoulder, fucking into him with helpless—little—jerks—while Quentin flexes his wrists against the weight of Eliot's hands and Eliot, Eliot just—every—_fucking_ time, he—he almost forgets, doesn't he? How Quentin wants it so badly he twists back sharply enough that Eliot can hear his neck crack so they can kiss while Quentin makes a lot of rough, fragmented _nuh, nuh, nuh_ noises against the edges of Eliot's mouth and Eliot tries to hold onto—onto a single—_fucking_ thought that isn't—Quentin's body burning-hot and tight-tight-tight around him while Quentin moans into his mouth, shuddering all over, flushed scarlet ever—everywhere Eliot can see or touch or _feel_: the magma flood of heat off his skin where—where he isn't—isn't, actually, just—just _melting_, is he, in the cradle of—of Eliot's body cupped overaround Quentin's while Quentin is—going glazed, and limp, and liquid: _it's like—Josh's entire fucking pharmacopeia_, he'd explained to Eliot, back in Eliot's third year, _only it doesn't interact with my meds or make me hallucinate undead unicorns or projectile vomit for four hours_; and yeah, conceivably maybe "my boyfriend gets high on my massive dick" wasn't, like, something that Eliot _should_ get off on, but he—does, so. so. so he just—squeezes Quentin's wrists, pinning him—stretched, taut, between—between Eliot fucking into—into the lush wet sinking-soft welcoming puzzle-piece fit of—his body, _fuck_: it's always—just—it's just so fucking _easy_, like—_gravity_: like—like it was—the first time, when Quentin had—had knelt across Eliot's body with his cheeks a painful-looking slapped-seared red and his eyes nearly black with longing and, and, and his—his weight on—on Eliot's hands on his hips and on _his_ hands, braced against Eliot's shoulders, and on Eliot's telekinesis (ozone—old books—) when Quentin's knees had gotten too trembly to support him: like gravity, as Eliot pulled his magic back—and back—and back, a little bit further every time Quentin nodded and whispered, _Okay—okay—_okay: until Eliot was—

—like Eliot is, at last—

—pressed all the way to the root inside of him. 

"El—" 

Quentin's voice is scratchy. Rough: he rubs—his head back, hot and aimless, his skin against Eliot's skin so hot and sticky it could be—August, Eliot is thinking. Thunderstorms. Quentin just—keeps making these ragged little noises that might—be trying to be words and Eliot keeps trying to answer, but—but. But. "Y—," he tries; then swallows: gravel, desert sand. He presses his mouth to Quentin's shoulder, swallowing again. "Yeah," Eliot manages: finally. Half air. 

He feels—desperate, overwhelmed, helpless: because—because Christ, he can feel—Quentin's blood, pulsing everywhere around him: the unreal heat of him, the heavy pliable liquid-warm stretch of his body: and—if it were just a matter of sticking his dick somewhere wet Eliot probably would've been perfectly happy to go fifty years with that place not being _Quentin's ass_ and it would've been—fine, honestly, it _doesn't_ matter, it hasn't _ever_ mattered, not—not to _Eliot_: except—except that—the reality of actually—pushing into him holding him up while Quentin rubs back against him with his whole body trembling, is that it feels fucking _incredible_, for starters, and—and also—

"I—," Quentin whispers, "I need—"

—and also. 

"Like this?" Eliot asks. Pressing—his face to the hot-flushed sear of the side of Quentin's face as he—careful, careful: thinking careful careful careful careful careful while he rocks back, pulling—against that tightwet hot slick drag and. Quentin, gasping—

—gasping, "Y—yes, ngh, I—"

"Hands?" Eliot asks, as Quentin nods frantic-frantic-frantic: and Eliot is just—overwhelmed. Christ. Drowning, fucking—_flattened_ by it, because—because it had never once in his life actually fucking mattered to him where he did or didn't get to stick his dick until he—he—and he is pr—essing back into Quentin careful careful careful _careful_ as he is squeezing his fingers tight-tight-tight around—Quentin's solid-lovely square wrists as—

"Ohfuck," Quentin gasps, pulling—

—against Eliot's grip on his wrists while Eliot squeezes his eyes shut, stinging with sweat: "Tell me," Eliot says. Somehow. While Quentin whines, thrashing underneath him: Eliot swallows. "Q—"

"_Yes_," Quentin grinds out: still—yanking on Eliot's grip on his wrists while— "Y—yes, p—please don't stop, please, I need—I need it, I need—I need you so badly, please—please don't stop, _please_"; so helpless Eliot—

—doesn't stop, and kisses him, and—squeezes at his wrists and doesn't stop—kissing him or—rocking in and out of him, just—doesn't stop, and doesn't stop—and doesn't _stop_ with Quentin—arching—moaning out as he—pulls at the headboard and Eliot's crabbed hands while Eliot is—a fucking tidal wave, a heart-pumped body-hot surge of blood: a relentless gush of wanting, dissolved into the unbearable obliterating torrent of Quentin Coldwater, _needing something Eliot can give him_: from the disorganized snare-drum scatter of Quentin's pulse in his wrists in Eliot's fists and the high scraping whine of his breath and the plush silky-wet clench of his body, getting not—not quite wet enough again so—so Eliot—drops Quentin's left wrist, fumbling for, for the bottle, while Quentin moans so loud Eliot's pretty sure he hears the windows rattle as he's rubbing—rubbing—rubbing the lube between them so he, so he doesn't have to—don't _stop_, Jesus, not with Quentin reaching back for, for Eliot's hair to pull squeezing the back of his neck while Eliot's wrist just brushes Quentin's cock and Quentin cries out, flinching, so Eliot rubs—his belly, his chest, the crinkled-tight God that must hurt nubs of his nipples, his—_throat_: working, frantic; while Eliot is just—fucking—into him and into him and into him Christ the heat of him his lube-greasy fingers dragging on Quentin's chin pulling him—closer, while they—kiss, and kiss, and—starving—_kiss_—

—and they both freeze, panting: at the distinctive wooden thunk of the apartment's front door, slamming shut. 

"Fuck," Quentin gasps; and Eliot slaps his hand down over Quentin's mouth. 

He can feel it: Quentin's whining breath, cold on the side of his fingers, while Eliot is trying—trying to—to fucking _think_, which is—not easy, when he's—kneeling up balls-deep in Quentin with both of them—drenched in lube and sweat while he can hear—his _mom_, his _actual mother_, scraping her boots off and—and sliding them into the closet, the soft scrape-y shuffle of her—fucking hand-knit socks in—in his fucking _hallway_, maybe _ten fucking feet_ from his door that isn't, actually, a door—

—as Quentin, shaking all over, gets his hands up, somehow; and—and begins to cast.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/held)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/held)

[Just enough to make Quentin feel held.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/held)

He is casting, a part of Eliot notes—a part of that is, clearly, attached to the rest of him with nothing but a single strand of, of embroidery floss, or spiderweb, or something—Archer's Audible Impermeable, and since AAI needs a fully enclosed physical space, with four walls and a ceiling and a floor, which is why you can use it just fine on, say, your bedroom at Brakebills or your boyfriend's dad's place in Jersey but not _for example_ an open studio apartment with a shoddily-cast illusion wall running down the middle, Eliot could've _told_ Quentin it wouldn't work, if he could've—in any way made sounds, or—or moved, which—which he. Can't, except—except for how his hips are sort of—not listening, to—any other part of him, so Quentin doesn't even make it two-thirds of the way through his spell that definitely won't work _anyway_ before he's—shuddering, half-falling forward shoulders hunched arms—folded—: burying his teeth in his palm to try and—keep himself anything even remotely approaching quiet, which—_that's_ definitely not going to work, _either_, not—not while he's shakily fucking himself back down onto Eliot's dick and panting so hard Eliot can _feel_ it, down to his _skeleton_ so—so Eliot just—hauls Quentin up against him again instead: hand on his belly hand on his neck while Quentin—Quentin is just _flushing_, even redder: scarlet all over while he is turning his face just enough that even tucked behind him Eliot still gets more or less the full force of it: that luminous pleading expression, when Quentin presses his shaking hand over—over Eliot's, God: over Eliot's fingers cupped—cupped around—the tender, pale architecture of Quentin's lovely throat and Eliot—Eliot can't just keep _fucking_ him, can he? He can't just—just squeeze, just a little: just enough to make Quentin feel—_held_, the way Quentin always likes to be held needs to be held is always—_letting himself be held_, _by Eliot_: swallowing against the press of Eliot's hand cupping his throat with his lashes fluttering and Eliot, Eliot can't, Eliot needs to fucking—_stop_ but his—his knees aren't listening, his—thighs aren't listening, his—_spine_ isn't fucking asking him a single goddamned thing, just—_shifting_—as Eliot takes frantic panting breath after frantic panting breath while his body is sitting back on—on its heels, pulling Quentin back to—_Jesus_—sit—sit allthewaydown on his cock, which—which makes Quentin gasp and gasp and gasp, turning—impossibly—_even redder_ while he drops his head back on Eliot's shoulder, reaching back to—to pet at Eliot's hair; twisting to rub his pink wet mouth, disorganized and desperate, against the edges of Eliot's face while Eliot—Eliot—Eliot is trying to remember the full sequence for that showy little wall-of-silence spell that—that M-Marina—had liked to use in the middle of the Physical Kids living room back when she was a third-year and he and Margo were ickle firsties: it'll probably earn him a citation for fast-draw ration violation but—but _he doesn't fucking care_; it's just—the problem's that—that even if it's not _intrinsically_ collaborative per se—God, _fuck_—it does use a really complicated variation on Thorpe's approach to nested sigilism to, to, Christ he's tight to—g-get around the need for physical _anchors_!—and oh, God, thank fuck, Eliot thinks, when Quentin drops his hands alongside Eliot's, straight into Popper 43: thank fuck, Eliot _did_ teach it to him, didn't he; because as soon as Quentin sees what Eliot's doing he just—falls into Eliot's rhythm: and Eliot shivers all over, against—that tense-hot prickling feeling of someone else's magic, dropping in alongside his—of _Quentin's_ magic, warm and stone-fruit dark and sweet and rich and—and _solid_, solid in the way the _Atlantic_ is solid: like, sure, someone could—push it around; hem it in, maybe; just fucking—ride all over it and piss on it and try to fucking—scoop bits of it up, to rearrange them: but no one was ever going to actually do anything that—that actually _changed the nature of him_, were they? Because Quentin—Quentin's magic, weaving in-around Eliot's—was just fundamentally, at the _core_ of him, _relentless_—

—and no, it wasn't _Eliot_, Eliot remembers, all of a sudden, eyes stinging: waiting for the nonexistent curtain in the back row at Shakespeare in the Park two summers ago, where Eliot had left an arm draped around the back of Quentin's seat while posting aesthetic shots to Instagram, trying—and failing—to act casual enough to convince much of anyone, but honestly mostly himself, that he and Quentin would be better off as friends, preparing himself for the inevitable moment when Quentin wised up, or met a girl, or Eliot just couldn't stand how precious he was becoming and dumped him, _for_ him—yes, definitely, _definitely_ for _Quentin_—_yet again_; while to his right Margo was teaching Quentin how to yield to someone else's spell-lead (which Quentin did [shocker] beautifully), just so that they could (as—Eliot knew—they had all planned together) smoke up with total impunity and also (as—Eliot later discovered—Quentin had planned all by his lonesome) get public-indecency levels of handsy during an unfortunately disappointing all-female-cast performance of _The Taming of the Shrew_. A year and a half later kneeling up in their bed pulling a silencing spell through the both of them with Quentin shivering on-against-around him, Eliot is whitewater, thoughts churning, pummeling against stone: because that'd led here too, hadn't it? That had been—

"Did it—work," Quentin manages, clumsy; and with his heart surging up inside him over and over and over Eliot bends forward, folding—: Quentin gasps, and gasps, and gasps with Eliot's mouth at the seam of Quentin's hair and his neck while Eliot whispers, "How much. Do you—care?"; and Quentin makes the same little broken noise that he always makes, _always_, when Eliot—when Eliot finally gets him right—right where he needs him, right where Quentin always—wants to be: and Quentin grinds out, "I—_don't_, I _don't_ care, will you just—fucking _fuck_ me—"

—so Eliot fucks him. Arms wrapped around him chestthighsbelly plastered against him putting—putting his fingers in Quentin's redwet mouth to give him something to suck on and to, to keep him, a part of Eliot is—halfway to thinking, _quiet_: just—just in case. Just in case, Eliot can't—can't quite think: in case it _didn't_ work, because Eliot—Eliot can feel the thrumming rise-and-fall rise-and-fall heartbeat surge of their tangled-up magic shifting around the edges of the room but—but for all he knows they cast—a divination for water; the Sumerian shield spell; that fucking—Transplanar Omnidirectional Astral Displacement sigil, which—if they've set that off in an apartment in Logan Square they'll _never_ pass it off as anything _other_ than a massive blast of the closest thing Brakebills teaches to actual battle magic—

—while Quentin—_whines_, licking wet-thick-slick along the sides of Eliot's fingers, and Eliot—skittering away from himself water on hot metal burying his face in Quentin's shoulder, panting—with—with Quentin's right hand wound up with his, squeezing painfully tight while Eliot fucks into him over and over with half of Eliot's left hand petting at the plush-wet insides of Quentin's open mouth while Quentin's left fingers just—drift—touch—and then _press_, oh Jesus fuck: hand flat to his belly pushing—down fuck Christ _harder_, which—fuck Eliot knows he does just—just to feel Eliot fucking into him, _Christ_ while in Eliot's shaking arms Quentin is muffled-moaning around Eliot's fingers with his—drool dripping down—down Eliot's wrist, out the sides of Quentin's hollow mouth, over his hot stubbly chin with his body just—winding up tightertightertighter like a tuned-sharp guitar string and then—with Eliot—pressingdeephard helpless into the lush soft wet solid-hot space of his body while Eliot—fucking—is remembering—: then Quentin _jerks_, coming in a painfully-tight seizing rush with Eliot shoved all the way into him, shuddering—dragging—against Quentin whining pushing-back trembling all over, clenching down _again_ while helpless Eliot—remembering how—how he had—while he is fucking back into him over and over and over with his whole body cresting like a wave and then—_crashing_, crashing down: Eliot comes, shuddering, _shuddering_ into Quentin: feeling him heart-blood-muscles-bones-body with his palm trembling on his belly over Eliot inside him and Eliot's wet hand cooling in the huffing rush of his breath while Eliot, flooded out past their edges, the rim of the planet, the bounds of the universe, presses his unsteady starving mouth against the meat of Quentin's shoulder; and closes his eyes.

Remembering—

That _Shrew_.

At Shakespeare in the Park, 2016: Christ. Eliot had forgotten all about that, except—except for all the parts of him that had remembered. All those—fucking _layers_, all the things that Eliot doesn't even need to think about for them to still—make him up, for them to hold up the rest of him: waiting, holding that namecard, on the sun-drenched sign above the south lawn at Brakebills; counting breaths in the library, while he held Quentin's hands; Quentin's chewed-on hoodie strings and perpetually dingy white socks; craft beer and BBQ in May in New Jersey; the hospital, for Ted; after the hospital, for Quentin; the thin glossy fiction of "spa days" with Margo, because having the two of them sitting around doing face masks on his bed made showers easier, on all those long dark days in between; two years of Eliot saying whatever dumbass nerd-illiterate thing seemed most likely to get him an adorable, exasperated lecture about Ankh-Morpork politics or or the genealogy of Tolkein's elves or the Sorting Hat from _Harry Potter_ and how could Eliot _possibly_ see himself as anything other than a Gryffindor, _honestly_, _Eliot_: two years of storytime from _Guards! Guards!_ and _Mort_ and _The Wee Free Men_, in the Cottage reading nook and the woods and later in his room; in _their_ room, because they never fucking slept in _Quentin's_; in the car while Eliot drove them around suburban New Jersey because Quentin didn't have his fucking license but _did_ now technically own Ted's silver 1998 Volvo S70; and then for six months on Skype after the eight in their informally-but-widely-understood-to-be-shared bed: layer after layer after layer of the sedimentary rock of Eliot, loving Quentin. Quentin licks at his fingertips: yearning, slow; and Eliot rubs his face on Quentin's shoulder. Still panting. He feels—God. He doesn't. He doesn't have _words_ for it. He never does, does he? 

"—fuck." Quentin takes a breath, sliding his hand up to Eliot's wrist, as Eliot cups his shaking wet fingers over Quentin's bobbing throat. "I—Jesus. _Did_ it work?" Half-croaked.

Eliot squeezes, just a little, then twists his hand to tangle their fingers together. Feeling— "The spell?" He breathes in, tasting—salt. Honey. Feeling his way through the last hints of burning juniper and that familiar dye-vat chemical sear behind overripe peaches—lighter fluid—the warm plummy richness of the last mouthful of an Australian Shiraz—: his magic, and Quentin's, mingling inside-around them; tasting of burnt sugar and wood shavings and black pepper and clover; and Eliot can think enough, finally, to pull it to pieces properly; and analyze its parts. 

"Yeah," Eliot says. Tongue thick. "It worked"; and Quentin exhales: his whole body going limp, trusting and heavy, against Eliot's body. 

Eliot swallows. Holding him. Layers, and layers, and layers. A year and a half later and all Eliot could say about that Shakespeare in the Park performance would've been wantonly plagiarized from Margo's post-show rant-by-way-of-review, which had lasted for three vodka tonics and a bottle and a half of rosé at that overpriced faux-dive bar a block and a half away, the three of them crammed sweatily into a back booth while she gesticulated with a plastic toothpick bearing a lime slice and Eliot nodded along and, under the table, clutched deliriously at Quentin's warm hand; because all Eliot can actually _remember_ about the play had ended about ten minutes in: at the moment when Quentin had sidled over into Eliot's lap while Janet McTeer was swaggering around the stage in a moderately sexually confusing fashion: _I thought—that this was what you wanted for your birthday_, Eliot had said, confused; and _It is_, Quentin had whispered—_whispered_, even _with_ the spell; and then he had added, _I've always hated this play_, leaning down, grinning hugely: the brightest light in the Delacorte, a star in Eliot's arms.

"I honestly wouldn't've regretted it if it _hadn't_," Quentin is saying, "but—s'probably better, for. My ability to look your mother in the eye." 

As he rubs, just so, at the sensitive web of skin between Eliot's forefinger and thumb.

Eliot hugs him. Feeling—mute: that awful, prickly-overwhelmed feeling rising up in—the roots of his eyes, the membranes of his nose—Eliot rubs his mouth against Quentin's shoulder, and Quentin turns his face, a little. 

"Are we having a moment?" he asks, gentle. Squeezing Eliot's hand, still knotted up, just against his clavicle.

Eliot laughs, wet. "Little bit," he admits.

"Mm. Okay." Quentin shifts, a little. "Uh. Is this a—not-pulling-out moment, or..."

Eliot laughs again, then takes a breath. "Your knees?"

"My knees are fine, old man," Quentin retorts, "I'm just—coming to the less-than-pleasant inevitability of—needing to think about cleanup, which—"

Eliot kisses the side of Quentin's neck. His face is hot. "We probably should've used a condom," he admits; even though the _very idea_ makes Quentin whine. "Yeah," Eliot agrees: he's thought, more than once, about how stunningly grateful he is that magical STD protection actually _is_ a thing, and not just something some unscrupulous second-year made up to get Quentin to let them fuck him bare, because—Quentin absolutely would've, no question. "I know your feelings on latex. _But_."

"Lowbrow," Quentin observes, shifting a little; so Eliot makes a mental note to slap it as soon as they get themselves untangled enough to give him the room.

He doesn't, though: mostly because Quentin is so obviously worked over it seems—meaner than Eliot'd intend it to be, basically. Instead he kisses Quentin's abs while Quentin flushes scarlet and shivers through Eliot cleaning them both up: first with the hand towel he prudently keeps stashed in the drawer with his lube and sex toys (the towel proves—reassuring, basically, but also functionally totally inadequate to the task), and then with a series of spells that Eliot happens to know were originally intended for a number of really deeply unsexy agrarian purposes (the spells—more effective, and yet also completely horrifying). 

Quentin shifts. "Is that the one for—"

"Shh, try not to think about it," Eliot advises him, then eels up to press their bodies together ankles to noses, while Quentin wriggles underneath him. Wrapping his arms around Eliot's shoulders, making—that face. "Seriously, Q." Eliot kisses him. "That stuff'll give you nightmares, just—"

"Aren't you going to at least tell me I'm your favorite heifer?" Quentin asks, eyes serious, as he winds his hands up in the back of Eliot's hair.

"I'm going to shave off all the hair on your body," Eliot tells him, "and then dump you in the snow"; and Quentin starts snickering, pressing his face against Eliot's throat. 

Eliot wants—to smile; so he sighs, instead: as theatrically as he can manage, then shifts them up onto their sides, so that Quentin will slot his legs between-around Eliot's. Humming. Sweet. Quentin is already as close as he can get, so he cuddles even closer; and Eliot tucks his arm under Quentin's head. 

Kisses him. Soft. 

Sharing air.

"So—story?" Quentin asks, some time later. 

"Mm?"

Quentin shifts. "The story," he explains. "To tell your mom." 

He's been running his hand up and down Eliot's back, up and down, up and down. It's—totally hypnotic: Eliot has to take a huge, rib-inflating breath, to get his brain all the way back in his body.

"Um." Eliot rubs at his face. "I guess—we came in to take a nap, didn't hear her come in?"

Quentin shifts, a little. There's something— "Okay," he says.

"What?" Eliot asks.

"What?"

"Don't 'what' me, we don't have time, that spell only lasts for like an hour and we can't cast it again without blacking out the building," Eliot says. "What's that face? You—"

"No, no." Quentin waves a hand, then clears his throat. "It's just, uh. El, you know, right, that, 'Oh, we went to take a nap, we didn't hear you come in,' is like... one hundred percent universal talking-to-the-parents code for 'we were just in there fucking,' right?"

"...do you have a better idea?" Eliot asks, and Quentin grimaces, a little.

"No," he says. "But—El, when I was sixteen my dad told me if I ever wanted to have someone over I just needed to make sure that their parents knew where they were and that if they had curfew they were home on time and also, did I know that there were condoms in the bathroom? So."

"Wow," Eliot says. He shifts, a little. After a second, hesitant, he asks, "Gender-neutral pronouns and all?"

"Oh, no, Dad totally said 'he,'" Quentin says; and then huffs, a little: looking down at Eliot's face; mouth twisting, as he curls his fingers through Eliot's chest hair. "Don't worry," Quentin says, voice dry. "I never take it personally, when people get that one wrong."

Eliot swallows. "I didn't know your dad thought you were gay." Quiet.

"Ohh, he didn't, I don't think?" Quentin shifts, a little. "Not—exactly? Not after—like, the fourth or fifth time I came out, anyway." He sighs, then mutters, "Though as it turns out, coming out to your dad as—to quote Kimmie—_only sort of_ kind of _gay_, while your first-ever girlfriend is actively sitting at the kitchen table, like, taking a second slice of pizza, is pretty awkward even if you've done it before"; and then rubs at his forehead: sighing again, before he tucks his head back down under Eliot's chin.

Snuggling in.

Eliot, chest sore, runs a hand over Quentin's hair, silent. 

His back. 

"I mean, I get it," Quentin says. After a second. "Like—m—Val _still_ thinks of herself a lesbian, you know, like—while she's actively perving on Rupert Graves, and—I mean, no one ever looks at someone and pegs them as, like, 'raging bisexual,' or whatever."

"No," Eliot agrees. He sighs, then tips his face down to kiss Quentin's forehead. Blinking. "Do you—you know that, um." Eliot takes a breath. "That fight we had, back in—God, it must've been, like. Right after your birthday. Uh, not this year, I mean—"

Quentin squints up a little, frowning at him. "Fight?"

"Yeah." Eliot shifts, a little. "Or, well—I guess it wasn't, like, a fight-fight, it was like—"

Quentin props himself up. "Are you talking about the whole, I-destroy-compulsory-heterosexuality-with-my-junk thing?" he asks, voice flat; and Eliot—

—can feel himself.

Flushing.

"Oh my God, Eliot," Quentin says, sounding—incredibly fond; and then twists away—just enough to grab a pillow with which he can thwack Eliot. "Are you seriously still _on_ this?" Quentin demands. At least he's not crying laughing, this time. 

"No—_no_, of _course_ I'm not." Eliot runs a hand up Quentin's back: apologetic, soothing. "I just—I was just. Thinking about it."

"You were—what the hell." Quentin's eyebrows lift. "Like." He laughs, a little. "While we were _fucking_?"

Eliot rubs at his face. "While I was trying not to come," he admits, "so I was—thinking about all of the times I—did something totally idiotic with you, like—didn't actually—_talk_ to you about—your sexual history, or your preferences, in any general sense, but instead just... _decided_ you were a heterosexual, engaging in a spot of bicurious spelunking, or whatever."

"For the first ten months we dated," Quentin reminds him; and Eliot rubs at his forehead.

"For the first ten months we dated," Eliot agrees. "Which—to be fair, I was _also_ a total idiot about _that_, so—it _is_ kind of a not-coming twofer."

Quentin scrunches his nose up. "I still have no idea why you thought I was straight, you know."

"Ohh," Eliot sighs, "you know, because you fucked a girl that one time, the week after I met you."

Above him, Quentin's face—does. A thing, which— 

"I know," Eliot says. Then, "No, _seriously_, I _know_, Q—also, that is," he notes, "an _extremely_ condescending expression. Just, like. FYI."

"No, I—Jesus, that's not—ugh, I just—_really really like you_," Quentin explains, rubbing their feet together; and then. 

He blushes.

_God_.

"That's good," Eliot says. Throat tight, as he—rubbing back. "I—really like you, too." 

Quentin scrunches his nose up. Rubbing, rubbing: toes against toes: _no socks_, Eliot thinks. 

"Want to go steady?" he asks.

"Yes, please," says Quentin: smiling, pink.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

When they emerge—re-dressed, and convincingly nap-blinky, Eliot thinks, mostly because they did end up taking a nap—Rachel is curled up on the end of the folded-up sofa with her feet folded up under herself, working up a pompom on a baby blanket in that weird, mottled yarn. Her hair is loose, frizzing wildly from the weather; and for a moment—just a moment—the back of Eliot's neck prickles so sharply it hurts. He'd—known, of course, that her hair was like his, but—he remembers being—oh, six, maybe seven; and watching her flat-iron it. _Why do you do that?_ he'd asked, because it made her frown with her eyebrows, even when she wasn't burning her fingers. _Invisibility_, she'd told him—cryptically, at the time.

She looks up, and then—smiles, sort of. Hard work, looks like. Beside Eliot, Quentin is saying, "Mm—hi, we didn't hear you come in": rubbing at his own jaw, and then—then Quentin leans over to give Rachel a hug. Eliot watches, feeling—uncomfortable; then follows: bending down to squeeze her—quickly, awkwardly—around the shoulders, after Quentin pulls back.

"It's all right, I know you two're exhausted," Rachel is saying: she touches Eliot's cheek, just for an instant, just before he straightens up: she still smells the same, he is thinking. Like Tresemmé and peppermint soap. His hand—barely-brushes the cloud of her hair, and then.

Drops down to his side. 

"How was, uh. Your visit?" Eliot asks, as he goes over to get his phone. He should—dinner. GrubHub. Chinese.

"I, um," Rachel says; and then stops. Looking down at her crocheting. "That is—I actually. Didn't end up—it was—the trains were really—everyone was carrying—one of those, um. Thermal bags, with a dish, or—or presents, or wine or—anyway. I just. Didn't want to intrude," she says, "on. Family stuff, you know"; and then laughs, a little: an odd, blocky little noise.

"Yeah," Quentin says, voice sympathetic, heading over towards the desk. "I—have definitely been there," he says; and laughs. "Well—at least you're with us, now, anyway, right?": facing the clock; so he's not looking, is he, when Rachel looks back down at her lap.

Eliot looks towards the kitchen window. Snow; the alley bricks. "And in time for dinner," he says. Light. Looking down at—

"Yes," Rachel says; and then: "Oh—Eliot, I put your Ventra card on your desk"; and Eliot—has to look up again, which—

"Uh—thanks." Towards Quentin. Edge of the desk, Ventra card: to stick it back into his wallet before he forgets it and walks all the way to the station tomorrow in the snow and then can't actually—go to work, which—well, he'd just better. Put his Ventra card in his wallet, essentially; and then—and then—_phone_, GrubHub, dinner—: but it's hard to stay on task, isn't it; with Rachel to his left not looking at—anything, while Quentin is tugging the sheet over the clock off, his brows going wrinkled: that far-away, thoughtful look he often gets, after—anyway. 

Eliot clears his throat. 

"What're we thinking," he says, trying to—focus. "Actually-good Chinese food, or dirty-good Chinese food?"

"Dirty-good," Quentin says; with—Rachel, too: almost in chorus. So. China Fast Wok it is, then: Eliot pulls GrubHub up, while he sidles into the kitchen for glasses of water for him and Quentin.

"Wasn't the clock stopped?" Quentin asks, and Eliot glances over: at the back of his bowed head. "Eight o'clock. I thought—," Quentin says. And then—he falls silent: turning, forehead creased, to look at Eliot.

It's a strange position, Eliot thinks. Quentin, standing just there, by the desk; and Rachel on the sofa; and Eliot half-hidden in the kitchen. _Accidental working?_ Eliot mouths, because he can, since Rachel can't see him; and Quentin turns back towards the clock, ducking his head.

"Maybe you knocked something loose?" Rachel suggests, "while you were working on it?": her voice—originless, disembodied; and Quentin says, "Uh—yeah. I mean—that's probably it."

Not looking at him. So Eliot turns. Finishes with their water glasses. After a half-second's thought, he asks, "Either of you want—wine? Beer?": not that he needs to really ask Quentin, at least, but—it seems like good form, probably.

By the time the driver shows up with their order, they've finished off one bottle of Prosecco—Margo wasn't _wrong_, was she, about Eliot's budget—and started in on the last bottle of that Riesling Kabinett that Eliot'd originally bought back for that dinner party at the end of August, when it was still about 90 degrees and 92% humidity: because what the hell, why not? It's Christmas. Besides, his dinner party hadn't been, exactly, a huge success—Alice had been on Earth for the weekend and staying on the pullout, but then she'd got stuck in the vortex of her parents' endless drama at some sort of a family reunion lunch that she'd (rightly) been dreading and had made it back to Eliot's twenty minutes late for dinner and very cross and wearing an unflattering dress cut for someone who _didn't_ have it going on, when Alice, of course, actually does; and the guest list might've _started out_ with three magicians Eliot knew he could trust around muggles (him, Alice, Amahle) and two normals he knew from around the neighborhood (Lina and Jessie), but then Eliot had wound up impulse-inviting both Robbie Pasquale (naturalist; Brakebills '17; newly-minted Wicker Park restaurateur) after a truly disastrous last-minute freakout about being the only guy _and also_ Orla and Patrick (from 2A) after a really awkward conversation on the fire escape landing; all of which would've been—fine, probably, except that Eliot had _known_ that Orla was painfully, excruciatingly shy even before she spent the entire evening gazing longingly at the door to the hall and cringing away from everyone else in the apartment, and it'd turned out that Jessie and Patrick knew each other already and had some kind of long-standing alcohol-based rivalry that involved them double-dog-daring each other to do shots off the bottle of Bacardi Black Jessie'd brought even while Eliot was trying to steer everyone to the table for gazpacho and seafood pasta, and also Robbie had turned out to be a Republican; so by nine p.m. it'd just been Eliot and Alice sitting in front of about six ventilation spells in their underwear watching the _Great British Baking Show_ and eating the black sesame gelato he'd meant for dessert, directly out of the carton. Which was not, perhaps, an auspicious start, to gracious hosting in his shiny new post-Brakebills life; but the part that is at present more significant is that Eliot had originally estimated the wine like he was buying for the Cottage on Discipline Detection Day, and not feeding a handful of people being awkward for an hour and a half; so he's not in danger of running out of decent liquor any time soon. More uncomfortably: now, a bottle and a bit in, Quentin and Rachel are both getting sort of shockingly giggly, in a way that makes Eliot feel—prickly. Unsure of himself and off-balance; and relieved, almost, when he has to go downstairs to locate their food and shove twenties at the driver, because on Christmas in a blizzard you _definitely_ tip in cash. 

Upstairs. Upstairs again, unavoidably: they spread out all the cartons and paper-wrapped chopsticks, the Szechwan beef and shrimp with lobster sauce, the salt and pepper fish and approximate mountain of vegetable fried rice, and then Quentin, halfway through handing a carton to Rachel, stops; says, "Oh! Um, I didn't think—do you—"; and she says, "Oh—God, no, not for—no, no, we were never really all that—uh, strict, and then definitely not—not for ages, not at all, I would've starved to death"; and Eliot has—no idea what's going on, until he looks at Quentin.

Quentin looks back, then sips his wine. "I mean—when you got bacon with breakfast, I guess I should've guessed," he says, "that you didn't keep kosher": and Eliot—

"Oh—Quentin, I keep meaning to tell you," Rachel says, straightening up, "On the L, earlier, there was this couple—older couple, maybe—mid-sixties, I'd guess? And—": then continues, not even—noticing. That Eliot. Is—

So.

So Eliot takes a bite of Szechuan beef, heart thumping; and then rests his foot on Quentin's, under the table. Quentin's looking at Rachel, nodding along, but his eyes crinkle up at the corners, and under the sole of Eliot's foot, Quentin scrunches his toes, unscrunches them, warm and wriggly; and when he next reaches for his wine, he gives Eliot a soft, private smile. The food's—good. Comforting: greasy and salty, loaded with carbs; just what you want from takeout on Christmas, honestly. If Margo was there—but. She isn't, is she, so Eliot—eats his fried rice, and sips his Riesling, and focuses on the warmth of Quentin's foot under his, and—and the benefits of Chinese takeout. Leftovers, for one: it's been a week and a half since Eliot made it out to the Trader Joe's and Aldi, so his fridge is looking a little bare. Besides—Eliot does, actually, really like to cook; but the one truly great advantage of takeout is not having a thousand pans to wash, because no one likes doing dishes, do they. 

"I do, kind of," Quentin admits, folding the carton of beef shut before sticking it in the fridge; "Yeah, but you're a freak, baby," Eliot reminds him; and Quentin beams at him, so—Eliot kisses the tip of his nose on his way to the sink with the plates, half—forgetting, honestly, that Rachel's still there: sipping her wine, wiping down the table with a paper towel, _being in Eliot's apartment_, Jesus, how— 

"I'm going to take the trash down," Eliot says, breathing in, stepping back; and then—he fumbles. Digs around in—then holds his cigarettes up; and Quentin just nods, doesn't even make any noise about following. 

Downstairs by the dumpsters Eliot smokes a cigarette. Texts Margo twice. Huddles into his jacket and his hideous Uggs and considers smoking another, but—ends up just going back upstairs, instead. It's just—filthy out, honestly: that fucking—howling vortex of snow, shoving him—in, in, in. 

In the apartment, the dishes are all resting in Eliot's draining rack, dripping quietly. Past them, Quentin is sitting in Eliot's desk chair with the height pumped up, so his bare toes rest on the floor, barely. Right back at it, obviously: lamp on, as Quentin pokes at the back of the clock systematically, with his head bowed down. 

"I mean, how hard can it be, honestly?" Quentin laughs, a little. "It's not like it's super high tech, or anything. He must've made this somewhere around World War I, it's not like he had access to—": and behind him, Eliot.

Pulls the door shut, silent. 

As he looks at the pale nape of Quentin's neck.

"Well, he was—an artisan, though, wasn't he": Rachel's voice, floating out from the living room. "A lot of that really old, careful hand-craftsmanship's been lost. Or—close to it, anyway."

"_Artisan_?" Quentin snorts. "He was, at best, a solid amateur tinkerer," he corrects. "The Coldwaters don't exactly—run towards the extraordinary": so Eliot—_has_ to go over there, doesn't he?

"I don't know—your dad designed robots," he reminds Quentin, "that's pretty cool." Rachel's back on the sofa—curled up with her crocheting, green purple blue—but she looks up, anyway, as Eliot drags a chair over from the table. Sits next to Quentin: spreading his knees, a little, just to make Quentin squirm, flushing, a little.

"Mostly my dad figured out how to make a robot fall down, like—after ten steps instead of four," Quentin says, "or fall down—less expensively, so it didn't break its, like, eye stalks—" 

_Eye stalks?_ Eliot mouths.

"—or, I don't know, whatever, I don't know anything about robots," Quentin says, totally unnecessarily. "But—he was a _manager_, Eliot, it's not like he spent his days drawing up designs for C-3PO, or whatever."

"Your dad was lovely," Eliot reminds him, and Quentin—

Ducks his head.

Eliot—turns. Clears his throat, picking up a screwdriver. Setting it down. "My point is just—the evidence is right here, Q," he says. "Ordinary people don't hand-craft elaborate clocks that take m—echanically-minded people," he corrects, just in time, "literal _days_ to open—Quentin," Eliot explains, to his mother, "has low self-esteem": and over her half-built baby blanket, Rachel throws back her head and laughs.

It's such an odd, surprising sound: leaving Eliot off balance. Rachel wasn't—depressed, or anything, when he was a kid, not like—but she was—

—she was—

Well. She was just always so—_quiet_. 

Eliot shifts. The thought feels—weighted, somehow; like a concession, even within the privacy of Eliot's own dark and unreliable mind. Like he's—being cornered, coerced into admitting it: the sort of thing you don't want your side entering into evidence—but that's ridiculous, of course. If there are sides, he and Rachel have always been on the same one. He's just—not used to her laughing, that's all. He wonders if he'll ever get used to it. Eliot slides his hand into his pocket, cupping his phone; but it stays silent.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/same_side)

[If there are sides, he and Rachel have always been on the same one.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/same_side)

He clears his throat. "Well, since we're all—being busy productive little bees, can you pass me my notebook?" he asks Quentin. Nods, when Quentin points to the soft-cover quad notebook crammed in alongside _Form, Space, and Order_, still bristling with Post-It flags. 

"Do you need your desk?" Quentin asks, half-standing; but Eliot grabs him by the edge of his jeans pocket, tugging him back down.

"No," Eliot says, firm, "you stay put." 

Enough of his feelings on the subject must come through in his tone, because Quentin turns scarlet, eyes widening as he jerks his face down. He's still—getting redder, impossibly: reaching over for his wine glass as Eliot nudges his knee against the back of Quentin's chair; and Quentin tips it back, downing the last two-thirds in one gulp.

"Refill?" Eliot asks, voice mild; Quentin shoots him a look of pure murder, but his shoulders slump, then, as he admits, "Yes, please"; so Eliot gets up to get the bottle.

The Riesling's gone, but so's dinner, so—if it was just him and Quentin, he'd probably switch them over to—oh, he doesn't know. Saint-Émilion, or—Dom Pérignon, or something, probably, so—it's probably better that it _isn't_ just them, not—not yet, anyway. Rachel's been working on the same glass of Riesling since halfway through dinner, but—she's still here. Isn't she. Eliot dithers, briefly; then gets down a bottle of that Chilean Carmenérè he's been picking up at Trader Joe's on the regular, lately, instead. It's not—fantastic, or anything, but it's. Good enough, isn't it, for just. For just—family, Eliot thinks, against his will; and then—

He stops. His hand drifting over towards that one Willamette Valley Pinot (also left over from the dinner party) that makes Quentin do his little seal-wriggle, instead—

—and then Eliot stops, and goes back for the Carmenérè. 

Hands steady, as he opens it up.

"Mm—thanks." Quentin looks up at him, eyes crinkling, when Eliot comes back; Eliot shrugs, and passes him his new glass. 

"Don't thank me yet," he says, light. "We've moved onto the cheap stuff." 

"Mm hm." Quentin breathes it in. Takes a sip: lashes fluttering, Christ. "Yeah," he says, voice mild, as he sets the glass aside, "I—was super worried, El, but that's—tolerable, I guess." He's not meeting Eliot's eyes: the corner of his mouth twitching, that little shit.

Eliot clears his throat. Sits down at his chair from the table, pulling out his phone to make a note in Reminders that Quentin is due one (1) spanking, and then sets his phone between them, screen unlocked, just to watch the blood creeping up the edges of Quentin's throat.

"You were saying," Eliot says. Mild.

"I, um." Quentin squirms, a little, which is—delicious. "I still just—there's that whole. Um—I mean."

"Matthew," Eliot reminds him. "You were just trash-talking your ancestors, which—rude, Quentin."

"Uh—right," Quentin says: recalling himself to the subject with visible effort: it's delectable. Eliot sips his wine. "I know he was—interested in cars? Engines and stuff, you know? Like—we're all. Handy, I guess." He huffs. "But it was—I don't know, it's always seemed like it was. Just sort of an eccentric hobby, with Matthew, it's not like he did it professionally." Quentin hunches into his hoodie. "Mostly he—blew them up, probably," he mumbles, "knowing my family."

"I thought you said he was an army mechanic," Rachel says, looking up, which—oh, Eliot realizes, right: he keeps going off to smoke, and—Quentin and Rachel must talk about _something_. Mustn't they.

"Uh, I mean." Quentin shrugs, a little. "He _was_ a mechanic," he says, "and—he did—he fixed ambulances, for the French army," like he's admitting that his great-great-grandfather had syphilis, or a stamp collection: something _really_ embarrassing. "He had—I don't know, he'd had some kind of. College friend, or something? And they both joined—I don't know, is it the foreign legion if you're just fixing flat tires? I mean—anyway. I was never totally clear on how he ended up in France in the first place, it was—before the US joined the war, or—or all my grandpa's stories were wrong, but—I sort of got the impression that Matthew ended up fixing cars because he was so bad at operating a gun that they couldn't find anything else for him to do." Quentin shakes his head. Laughs, a little. "I don't really know, honestly," he admits. "My grandpa—he was writing a book about that part of the family, but I was still pretty little, when he really started to—" 

He stops. 

After a moment, Eliot rests his hand on Quentin's back: which. Shifts.

Settling, sinking: back against Eliot's hand.

"Anyway," Quentin says. "All the explanations I got were pretty confused." Leaning into it, as Eliot rubs at his spine through his t-shirt. 

"And—he survived the war?" Rachel asks. Sounding. Uncertain.

"Oh, yeah." Quentin rubs at his face: he still looks so tired. "He lived until—the late '50s or early '60s, I think? I don't think my dad met him, but my grandpa and he were close, when he—Adam, that is—was a kid." He shrugs. "I think that's how Adam got into it, honestly. That part of the history."

Rachel is quiet, for a heartbeat, and then— "Do you know what he did," she says, a little hesitantly, "after the war?"; and Quentin.

Hunches down into his hoodie.

Eliot scratches, very gently, at Quentin's spine. "He was a gentleman of leisure," Eliot says, to Rachel; and then sips his wine: meeting Quentin's eyes: rueful, and soft. It's not what Quentin had actually said, by candlelight, on Saturday, is it. What Quentin had said, by candlelight, on Saturday, was: _Mostly_, sighing, _I think he spent his time wasting the Porter-Wilde money_. 

But—close enough.

"Ah," Rachel says; and then—laughs, a little.

"It wasn't—_him_," Quentin explains; flushing, around his edges. "_He_ didn't have any—it was his wife. Beth. _Her_ family was—well, her dad was kind of..."

He trails off. "A big deal," Eliot supplies; and Quentin turns pinker, squirming a little.

"He wasn't _that_ big a deal," he argues; and flipping open his notebook, Eliot rolls his eyes: God save him from East Coast upper middle class WASPs, honestly.

"Oh—come on, Q, he was a judge." Thinking: _careful_, as he thumbs past the looped-circle designs he couldn't leave alone all summer and fall to find, at last, a blank page. "I think that's a sufficiently big deal." He lays his notebook on the corner of the desk, then he realizes he hasn't got a pencil.

"Yeah, but like—all Beth's uncles and her grandfather and her brother were, like—" Eliot taps Quentin's hip, so Quentin will shift it back a little, and Eliot can get the drawer open enough to fish one out. "—senators and state supreme court justices and stuff," Quentin is explaining, poking at the clock, "and—Beth was a girl, so—it's totally awful, but marrying up would've been basically, like, what they considered to be her _job_, you know?" Eliot pushes the drawer back in, so Quentin can scoot back in against desk: he still hasn't even looked up. "Which she definitely _didn't_," Quentin adds, "because—I mean, Matthew's family was new money, for starters, and—and if I'm remembering right, Matthew was the youngest? So—he wasn't exactly. Worth a lot."

Which—

Eliot isn't totally aware, really, of exactly how it happens. All he remembers is—looking up. And—he will never be sure, exactly, what he was looking for; but what he finds, across Quentin, is Rachel: looking, in fact, at _Quentin_. And looking—well, about as fond and exasperated as Eliot feels, honestly; and Quentin. Does tend to have that effect, Eliot _knows_ that—but—

Rachel's gaze shifts; and all-at-once, she meets Eliot's eyes. Her expression—

_He's not_ that _cute_, Eliot remembers: from Margo. Who had tugged Quentin's tie straight; and then booped his nose; to which Quentin had stumbled backwards, flushing everywhere Eliot could see. And later that night—New Meat Day, Fall 2015—lying on her bed in the Cottage nose-to-nose with him Margo had said, _You're gonna be dumb about this one, aren't you_; sounding resigned; and then—

_I like him_, Margo had said, _he's a disaster_; and then—_let's adopt you a puppy, Eliot_. 

And meeting Rachel's amused, exasperated, lovely brown eyes—with Quentin between them—"And, like, all _Matthew's_ brothers were, you know," he is explaining: not quite a mumble, but not a _million_ miles off, "like—running the business, or becoming pilots and sea captains and getting medals slapped all over them, so like—Beth, and Matthew, they were both kind of like—the leftovers, you know?": a slow, prickling sensation starts—somewhere. Very low down.

Under the back of Eliot's shirt.

After a moment, Rachel looks down. At the third of a mottled-multicolor baby blanket pooled up in her lap.

"Yes," Eliot says, after a second. "I definitely—can see the similarity between that quarter-cup of shrimp we just stuck in the fridge and." A deep breath, to gather himself: "Your great-grandpa," he says, "who ran away to fix ambulances for _another country's army_, and built wildly elaborate carved-wood clocks, _by hand_, and was, let's be honest, presumably adorable—"

"Oh come on," Quentin protests, "_I've_ never even seen a picture of him. Also—great-great grandpa"; as Eliot kicks him in the ankle, though not very hard.

"Q, I was at your dad's memorial service, remember?" Eliot says. Fumbling for—and finding, thankfully—that same forever little bit of exasperated: finally. "Family pictures _all over_ the place." Easy, to feel it, because Quentin's jaw is getting that solid, mulish set it gets sometimes: as though he is realizing, at last, that they can make this the argument Eliot will never win. Eliot's ribs unclench. Enough, perhaps, that he can look back at Rachel, and explain: "There are, literally, no unattractive Coldwaters. Just—absolutely none." Voice normal. It's fine. 

"El—"

"Like, his grandpa?" Eliot says: because—_no_, Quentin. "This mysterious historian? Sounds like a nerd, definitely did wear tweed jackets with elbow patches, but also—_total_ silver fox": as watching him, Rachel's eyes are crinkling up at the corners. Easy, Eliot thinks, and then adds, "And his _dad_—"

"Please don't tell me if you think my dad was hot," Quentin sighs; and Eliot—looks at him. Raises two extremely pointed eyebrows; and Quentin goes crimson.

"I'm just saying," Eliot says, leaning back in his chair. "You come from a long line of babes, buttercup—own it."

Quentin flushes even redder—_honestly_—and then. Takes a breath. "I just _meant_," he says, in his _I'm Being Perfectly Reasonable, Eliot_ voice, "that—you know, there were all those. 'Important families', or whatever": air quotes and everything: ugh, Eliot just—can't even _deal_ with him, sometimes; "but Matthew and Beth were like—really not on that track, like, at all": which—it's not like this is _not_ the kind of thing Eliot has learned to expect from a double legacy at Columbia, but. Eliot's mostly learned to pick his battles, at this point.

Hasn't he.

"Right," Eliot says, "so—not a gentleman of leisure, just. An aesthetically-minded upper middle-class wastrel"; and Quentin's mouth twists up in the way it always does, when he's trying not to laugh—

"Well, we do all have to have career goals," Rachel says, absently, "and I bet—'aesthetically-minded upper-middle-class wastrel' wouldn't be half bad. If you've got the opportunity"; and Eliot.

Looks up.

It takes a second, for Rachel to look up from her crocheting; as Eliot—considers, and discards, a half-dozen possible replies in rapid succession.

"Um—oh." Rachel sets her crocheting in her lap, then on the sofa, at her side. "That—reminds me," she says, not very plausibly, "Eliot, is your laundromat likely to be open?"

Eliot straightens. Laundry. Sure. He squares his notebook to the side edge of the desk. "If by 'laundromat' you mean 'the washers in the basement,'" he says, "then yes." Voice light, he reminds himself. Spine straight. Shoulders back. "Do you need anything? Hold on, actually, let me get you—" He taps Q's hip again; and Quentin slides back.

"I've got—some quarters in the car, I think," she says, crouching down by her bag. "But—do you have some extra detergent? I wasn't anticipating staying more than a night," she admits, awkward.

"Oh," he says, because—of course she wasn't. "Um, yeah, definitely, but—actually, the machines are on card, too," he explains, and holds up his laundry card: he keeps it on a lanyard and tops it up dutifully, because it's hard to manipulate the card readers without another resident noticing. "Let me grab you the detergent, too": because he keeps his jug of Seventh Generation Free and Clear on the top shelf of his closet, which—he'll have to rethink that, won't he. Before May. He hands it down to her: hovering in the mouth of the hall with her bag slung over her shoulder. "Or, um." Eliot laughs, a little. "I mean—you could always just. Borrow a pair of pajamas, if you wanted?"

"No, really," she says, "it's fine"; and then—she smiles, a little hesitantly; and Eliot—

—doesn't care. He doesn't, he _doesn't_, except—except that he—

—he just. Hates it. He—he _hates_ it, all of a sudden: that this is—what he has with her, that this is—how they _are_ with each other; that he's become—precisely this kind of stupid, pointless cliché: he hates it, he just fucking—can't _stand_ it, remembering—

Eliot blinks.

Remembering, all of a sudden, that _Quentin_ had once told him that _he_ didn't get along with _Ted_. 

_There's not like—a reason, or anything_, Quentin had mumbled, tucked against Eliot in the dark of Quentin's bedroom: Eliot barely remembers when. Quentin had said, _We just don't have anything in_ common_, you know?_ And Eliot, who'd felt like a pretty solid expert on Not Having Anything In Common With Your Parents, had rubbed his back sympathetically and said, _Yeah. I know._ Had that been—before Ted got sick? Right at the start of Quentin's second semester, maybe; or—in that early embarrassing window in his first, when Eliot'd still been climbing into bed with him and kissing him for hours while telling himself over and over that it was fine, it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't like they were _together_ or anything. Or—had it been—after, maybe: in that period after Quentin had just found out; when Eliot was going with him to Jersey every other weekend because Quentin had asked him to and Eliot was just—completely fucking helpless in the face of Quentin, wanting him: in that period when Eliot was frantically trying to adjust and re-adjust his mental picture of Quentin's family life as the _artifacts_ of it kept throwing him for curve after curve: like Quentin's childhood bedroom, in which a poster of David Bowie in _Labyrinth_ featured suspiciously largely; or the bizarre ever-present little legacies of his parents' divorce, in which (sixteen years later) the subject of Quentin's second-grade placement into gifted and talented education could apparently _still_ end conversations with the suddenness of a freight train to the forehead, but references to Val leaving Ted for a woman—well, with _those_, no one actually seemed to care; or—above everything else—the undeniable reality of Quentin's stolid, reliable father: square, good-humored, wearing a lot of plaid; with a sort of unassuming bookish butchness that reminded Eliot of, minimum, two separate professors he'd had crushes on in college—no. No. It was—it was _earlier_ than that. It had to've been—before Eliot had ever—tongued him open; or nuzzled that sensitive strip of skin under his ear; or crawled frantically on top of him in the reading nook so they could kiss and kiss and not stop kissing, because—because it had been—weeks, at least; months, maybe, even; between Quentin cuddling with him, fully dressed, in Eliot's room with all the lights on and grumbling about his parents, and Eliot actually, in fact, _meeting Ted_: because Eliot had been—shocked. Shocked, almost, because—so many many many weeks after Quentin had first said he didn't get along with his dad, Ted was—to put it mildly—not what Eliot had been expecting. Quentin thought they didn't have anything in common because Ted drank Sam Adams and watched golf: as if looking at Ted wasn't like opening a window to Quentin in thirty years, if no one taught him how to dress before that; as if Quentin had never noticed that thread of irritable, it-could-be-better can-do spirit running through the both of them. As if just because Ted's thing was _airplanes_ and Quentin's was _humorous British fantasy novels_, it didn't mean they weren't both drawing from the same bone-deep wellspring of genetic dorkiness. It had taken months, honestly, for Eliot to actually _get_ it: that when Quentin said he _didn't get along with his dad_, what he actually meant was that he _didn't know how to_ talk to _his dad_: because in the thirteen months Eliot actually had to know Ted, during the vast majority of which Ted was _dying_, most of what Eliot saw between Ted and Quentin was a kind of—perplexed, boundless tenderness; offset occasionally by some lightly-annoyed family squabbling, and—

—and it should be different, shouldn't it? Between Eliot and Rachel?

Eliot scrubs at his forehead. "Seriously," he says, after a second. "I've got—sweaters, too, um—Quentin probably has a spare set of pajama bottoms or something, he's not that much taller than you—I feel like, between the two of us we ought to be able to—make sure you won't freeze to death, or go naked, or something."

Rachel's mouth turns up, a little. "Laundry's not a fate worse than death, El."

"I know. Just—" He sighs. "It's—a holiday," he explains. Throat sore. "You're supposed to. I don't know. Relax."

She leans her temple against the doorframe. "So you'd loan me a sweater?"

"I'd loan you any number of sweaters," Eliot agrees.

She nods, her face serious. "How about a bra?" she asks; and Eliot says, "Um—"; and then.

He laughs.

She ducks her head.

"I—doubt we're the same size?" he tries, after a second; and she looks up again, pushing her hair back.

Her eyes. Big, and wide, and—and almost—_hungry_, or—or something very like it, which is—. He doesn't know why—, except that Rachel is—

Except. Except that Rachel looks like him, doesn't she, in the yellow hall light? 

Tired; sort of pretty. 

Ordinary. 

"So, okay." Eliot laughs a little, stepping back. His back feels—prickling. Uncomfortable. "The laundry room," he explains. "It's—in the basement, you just go—down the stairs, then. Keep going."

"Okay," she says. "I—anything you want me to throw in?"; and Eliot laughs, frantic.

"No! No, God, I think you've done enough of my laundry for one lifetime, Jesus." He takes a breath, slow, then holds out his laundry detergent. "No, no tax needed," he manages. Light. "You—can stay with me for free on Christmas in a blizzard anytime, Mom, honestly."

Rachel laughs, a little, and takes the bottle. "Thank you," she says, and then—

—she touches his cheek. Looking up at him.

He looks down. At her face. His face, almost, except—

She looks away, and then—one shoulder hunches up, a half a shrug; as she slips out the door.

Leaving him just—standing there. Spare prick, Eliot thinks: which is. Like. A saying, or something? Empty-handed, he stares at the door: she's just—left it unlocked, and walked out into the wilds of Chicago, because—

—well. Because she has to, doesn't she? She doesn't have a key. So Eliot reaches over and turns the deadbolt, which sticks a little, as always. And then—

—then he unlocks it again, so she can get back in. 

His hand drifts down to the little keyhook just next to the door. Two rings. Eliot swallows, and picks his up, so he can grab the other; and then goes back over to his chair, and to his desk.

And to Quentin.

"But if I give your mom my clean pair of pajama bottoms, whatever will _I_ wear in bed?" Quentin asks, voice low, not looking up at him; and Eliot takes a deep, slow breath: the first one he's actually had, he thinks, in ages.

"A smile?" Eliot suggests, and Quentin darts a look at him.

"Does this mean you're planning to take me savagely against the fake wall again?" Quentin asks. He's feeling along the bottom edges of the railing blocking off the bottom window of the clock, tapping with the end of his screwdriver, even though Eliot _knows_ he's been over that before. The back is still shut: he hasn't gotten another screw out of it in hours.

"Against the headboard," Eliot corrects, and then leans over to kiss Quentin's shoulder. "But—well, let's just say I'm not ruling anything out": and sure, okay, fine, Quentin doesn't actually look up at him or anything, but he smiles like dawn breaking.

Eliot touches Quentin's cheek. Pinking up. All dimples. "You want a hand with that?" Eliot asks, very low; and Quentin.

Squirms.

Then takes a breath: "Okay—no," Quentin says, "because—having your mom walk in us once in a day is—enough, thanks, so. Go—do work stuff, sketch, I don't care, just."

"Don't keep tempting you with my wiles?" Eliot suggests; and Quentin nods.

"Yes," he agrees. "You just—keep your wiles away from me": but then he leans in to give Eliot a kiss, which is. Lovely: Eliot breathes in deep. Cupping Quentin's face, warm and pink and stubbly.

"Hey," Eliot says. He takes a breath. "I keep—being really weird about this, so—can I just give you your keys without us, like. Talking about it anymore?"

Quentin's eyes crinkle up. "No grateful weeping, no overemotional scenes?" he asks; then immediately says, "Yeah, I mean—" no pause— "besides, I can pick locks. So."

Eliot nods. Rubbing their noses together. "It basically doesn't mean anything," he agrees.

"Yeah, no definitely," Quentin agrees. "I mean. Eliot who?"

"I don't know, some guy," Eliot murmurs, against-into Quentin: sliding his arms around Eliot's shoulders, giggling.

They kiss: easy, Eliot thinks. Like—a bath, at exactly the right temperature; or well-broken-in Italian leather shoes. Rubbing: their faces, rubbing together: Eliot—isn't a cat person, particularly, but—he gets it, maybe. He thinks.

"Want—some more wine?" he asks. Nuzzling: as Quentin takes a breath. Sitting back, blinking. "Or there's tea," Eliot offers, looping their fingers together, just over Quentin's knee, "and—I've got cocoa, too, actually. It's for Margo, but—if you're chilly?"

"Not with you," Quentin murmurs, and then, as Eliot squeezes his hand, Quentin pushes his hair back with the other. "Um—tea would be great, actually."

Eliot nods, and pushes up to his feet.

They'd stashed the open trunk over against the wall next to the sink: just about the only place they could have it off a) the desk, b) the table, and c) the bed, to leave all of the above free for more or less their intended purposes. Eliot doesn't even realize, totally, that he's staring at it, while he waits for the kettle to come to a boil: until—

—Eliot frowns, and goes over. Kneeling down by its edge.

Quentin glances over, then back at the clock. "There's nothing in there," he reminds Eliot. "We checked, and then Rachel checked, and then I checked again, so—"

"Yeah, but—you still can't get the clock open," Eliot notes: why _shouldn't_ he check? He's not doing anything.

"Yeah," Quentin says, "but—what're you looking for, anyway? It's not like stuff like this comes with a user manual."

"No, I know. I just—" Eliot shrugs. "I just—I don't know. Call it a hunch": as he runs his finger along the line in the molded lining, where the nap of the velvet doesn't, quite, align. He's right: he can feel it. There _is_ a seam. "Q, did you look inside the lining?" Eliot asks, sliding a nail—

The chair squeaks, with Quentin shifting. "What do you mean, _inside_ the lining?"; and Eliot. 

Shakes his head; and then closes his eyes. Feeling—

—the thing about telekinesis that a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their heads around is that it isn't, precisely, _touch_. Most of the time, Eliot can't feel what he's manipulating the way he would if he got his skin involved; and even when he can, it's almost uniformly unlike touching that particular thing with his hands at all. Reaching his power through the seam in the velvet comes with that perpetual ozone-old books flavor, but also with a sensation somewhere in between smelling slightly moldy raspberries and licking rough dry cotton—and not, like, nice, clean cotton, the sort that's ideally stretched and salty over somewhere sensitive, with a boy inside of it; more like—tripping and falling mouth-first into the remnants rack at a particularly undertrafficked Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts. When Eliot _pulls_, it feels like putting a truck into gear—

—and a little door, just tucked in against the side of where the clock goes, flops open.

"I mean," Eliot says, "_inside the lining_": and reaches in, pulling out—

The desk chair rattles, as it rolls. "Holy shit," Quentin says, scrambling over. "Are those—"

"Photos," Eliot holds one up, as Quentin crouches next to him. "And letters—Q, maybe your clock _does_ come with a user manual."

"This is—God." Quentin's eyes are huge. "There are _more_?"

"Yes," Eliot says, unnecessarily, because he keeps reaching inside the wall of the trunk and finding just—letter, after letter, after letter: fucking stacks and stacks and _stacks_ of them, some of them wrapped in bundles and tied together or paper clipped—paper clips?—but most of them are just—loose, crammed in: sheet after sheet folded in halves or thirds or—he hands another handful to Quentin—slipping out of yellowing envelopes; bearing stamps, or sketches, or some just broad-scrawled fountain-pen names; or—Eliot pauses—on this one: a quick-jotted note, in precise modern printing, marked down at the bottom corner of the back of four thick folded-together sheets: _MC→BPWC (?)_, it says; _1907_. 

"Q," Eliot says; and then. "Did your grandpa ever mention—like. Reading any of Matthew's letters?"

"I mean, not to me, but, like, he probably _did_," Quentin says, "Why?": without looking up: he's already sorting the stack he's got into piles. 

"Because I think someone's made notes on some of these." 

Quentin looks up. "Can you put those in a separate pile, as you find them?" he asks. 

"Sure," Eliot says. "Uh—are we reading them?" 

Quentin shrugs. "I mean—I will later, probably? But you can, if you want to."

"I mean, no promises," Eliot says; and Quentin wrinkles his nose at him, as Eliot says, "but—I will admit to a certain level of curiosity." 

Quentin grins at him, before looking back down to his neat little stacks: "Tell me if you find anything cool," he says; so Eliot folds the letter open, very very carefully: yellowing, but whole. The handwriting makes Eliot's head hurt, but—here and there, he thinks, here and there: his eye catches on a _Darling_; and then an ink-scrawled _longing_; and then— 

"Um," Eliot says, after a moment in which the word "thighs" featured somewhat unnecessarily, "Q, I—I think I may've just found your great-grandparents' dirty emails."

"Great-great-grandparents'," Quentin corrects, absently; then jerks his head up, eyes widening. "Shut _up_," he breathes, "are you serious?"; so Eliot hands the letter over, and Quentin shifts, so he can smooth it out over the knee of his jeans. 

"'Darling,'" Quentin reads. "'My longing for you swells nightly, departed from the satin-hollowed country of your'—okay, wow, Matthew."

"It did seem a little overdone," Eliot admits. "Look at the back."

Quentin reads, "'M—atthew Coldwater to Beth Porter-Wi'—shit, you're right": then turns it over. "Okay, well," he says, after a second, "I guess I don't have to ask why he assumed it was to Beth"; and then tilts his head, still frowning down at the letter.

Eliot clears his throat, then gestures towards a packet of photos, tied together with a dingy ribbon, once pink. "Do you mind if I..."

"No, no, of course not." Quentin waves a hand, distracted: still reading the letter, and also obviously dying for a red pen. 

"Any bits of your old-timey soft porn any good?" Eliot asks, as he unties the photos. 

Quentin hums. "He's got a real problem with..."

"With?"

"Word repetition," Quentin finishes, distractedly: there's an English major for you. 

"I noticed that," Eliot agrees. The top photo is of a boat, just at the edge of some unknown body of water: a lake, probably. The Coldwaters are totally boats-on-lakes people. It's a surprisingly good photo, though; and also sort of—familiar. It's not that weird, probably: Quentin said Albany, didn't he? But like—with more nature, Eliot notes. Eliot'd been on a few college outings that'd involved nature. Unfortunately. He turns the photo over, but all it says on the back is 1908. 

"Oh, boy, he called her eyes _dark pools_," Quentin says. "Why don't you ever call my eyes 'dark pools'?"; and Eliot looks up.

"Lean over?" he asks, so Quentin leans over, blinking. "Um—I can offer you 'muddy ponds'?"

"Are they nice muddy ponds?"

"My very favorite muddy ponds," Eliot assures him; and another dimple springs into view.

"Todd's going to be so disappointed," Quentin says; and Eliot—

"Does _Todd_ call your eyes muddy ponds?" he asks, feeling—bizarrely outraged; but Quentin just starts to laugh. Shaking his head.

"God, no," he says. "Never mind. What else've you got over there?"

Eliot looks back down at his photos. "A few good family snaps," he notes, setting aside several blurred and awkward photos of battalions of Coldwaters past; "and—was Matthew a photographer?"

"Not that I know of," Quentin says. "Listen to this. 'When I dream of you, do I dream of your body or your soul? Surely nothing so profane as a body could be admitted to such ecstatic union.'" He folds the letter in half, eyebrows practically to his hairline. "There is _no way_ that isn't plagiarized."

"Is that an automatic fail in a love letter, or just freshman comp?"

"I just mean, I wish he'd cite his sources," Quentin grumbles; and Eliot looks down at the photos again, grinning.

"Taking notes, baby?" he asks; and then flips the the next—

And.

Quentin pauses. "I don't know," he says. "I'm—pretty fucking glad my body is admitted to our ecstatic union, and that's—never felt profane to me at all."

Eliot touches his tongue to his bottom lip. "Yeah," he says, quiet, "no": and then— 

"Quentin," he says: very, very low.

"What'd you find?" Quentin asks, scooting closer; and Eliot.

Holds it towards him, so they both can see.

There are three people in the photo: two men and a woman, all very young—the youngest still a boy, nearly, really. It looks very much of the same vintage as all the other photos—old-fashioned suits, high collars, the woman's floaty white dress—and it wouldn't, probably, be of much of any particular interest, just another turn-of-the-century family snapshot except for three specific details: one, the man on the left has very dark hair and an _extremely_ ridiculous mustache, but he doesn't so much _look like Quentin_ as he _could _be_ Quentin_, in an oddly era-specific disguise. Second, the woman in the middle is smiling hugely—laughing, probably, in fact, Eliot would guess: her lovely face dimpling abundantly, as her fair hair frizzes out of its Edwardian knot. 

And third: all three of them are standing under a banner, bearing what sure as _hell_ looks like the Brakebills seal.

Quentin reaches down, hesitant; and touches the bee.

"Well." Eliot clears his throat. "I guess there's no point in asking which are your grandparents."

Very light.

_Great-great-grandparents_, the Quentin in his mind supplies.

"I don't—understand," says actual-Quentin, instead. His voice—

—very, very slow. 

Eliot looks down at the photo again: he wonders about the boy on the right: pretty clearly the younger of the two, and—heresy, but—also objectively the more handsome. He's fair-haired, like Beth—a brother, possibly? Eliot flips the photo over. _W., B., and M._, it says. _Graduation, May 1909._

A sudden noise, and both of them start: from—the desk, where—where the clock is whirring frantically, Eliot can hear it: Quentin scrambling over after him to turn it around, looking at—at the handles spinning wildly across the face of the moon before all the shutters snap open—"Shit!"—and then shut again, all at once: leaving Quentin and Eliot standing next to it, clutching at each other with Eliot's heart racing in his chest while Quentin's races under his hands.

"What," Quentin says, "the actual fuck": and Eliot, with some difficulty, unclenches his fingers from the back of Quentin's hoodie, and goes into the hall for his work satchel. "El—"

"Just a sec," Eliot calls back; but he can't find anything useful in his bag, so he goes back into the kitchen, and digs around in his junk drawer instead.

"What are you doing?" Quentin asks, as Eliot turns back to peer at the clock.

"Figuring out why you can't get it open with a screwdriver," Eliot explains; and hands him the lens.

Quentin holds it up. Looking through, at what Eliot could tell at a glance was layer upon layer of enchantment: at the calcified accumulation of a century's worth of magic, folded in on itself over and over and over, by the operation of the clock: "I don't _understand_," Quentin repeats, plaintive. "Why—who would bother enchanting—someone's _clock_, why—"; and Eliot rolls his eyes.

"Honestly, Q, you're the person who taught _me_ about Occam's Razor," he says. "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and _does massive durable spellwork like a duck_ and also _graduated from duck university_—"

"My great-great-grandparents," Quentin says, very flat, "were _not_ magicians."

"Really?" Eliot nods at the clock. "Go on, then. Open it up. Ulworthy's Separation, it's a first-year spell—"

Quentin's face looks like he just got a whole mouthful of vinegar. "Oh my God, I'm not using Ulworthy's on—your fucking _family heirloom_," he says; but then—then he just turns around and casts the Cretan ordered-disassembly spell that Julia got so into last summer instead: and—

—slowly, very slowly—

—the case of the clock begins to move.

"Oh," Quentin says, hushed; and Eliot nods, watching a half-dozen flat, flush-fit panels of wood slide apart: like a puzzle-box, with no mechanism holding the parts of it in place. Inside, the clock is clean, shining—suspiciously clean and shining, Eliot thinks: gears don't roll off the assembly line looking like that. Gears, chains, weights—clockwork, in short, but also—

—_honey_, Eliot thinks. Except—no. Not honey, he reminds himself: because honey doesn't just—hover, does it? So it must be—a stone, of some kind; or—or amber, most likely: a solid, crystalline lump of the stuff, nearly the size of one of Margo's hard, pointy fists and pulsing with a slow, sleepy glow: that's probably the only reason why it looks so much like it's—not solid. Like—

"Is that—what watch people mean when they talk about 'quartz movement'?" Eliot asks, pointing; and quiet beside him, Quentin says: "No."

Quentin pulls his chair back up to the edge of the desk, sliding in; and Eliot sets the photo down on the desk corner, so he can sit down beside him. Lend a hand.

Eliot has, always, really liked to watch Quentin work, but it's never been—quite like this before, has it? Helping Quentin tip the clock up, two hands, while Eliot is pulling the lamp into position with a flick of his power: feeling the spellwork seeping out of the open back, with the panel down: brushing the hairs on the backs of his hands. It doesn't feel like Quentin's magic, does it? Not that—that translucent, sea-salty pressure of him: irresistible, in the way that water can't resist a cup, or the way that water won't really yield to cupped hands—but then again, nothing else ever really _does_ feel like him, does it? That weight, and steadiness; and—and the creamy caramel-silkiness at the core of him as he is casting, hand to hand, with Eliot. The magic inside the clock feels... _hotter_: busier, and sharper at its edges than Quentin ever does; but it does still feel—_familiar_: an echo of that beat of perpetual driving-forwardness that underlies both Quentin's best ideas and his most annoying moments of naïveté; mixed up with—with the unassuming welcome Eliot had always felt in Ted's home; and a sort of bright, bustling energy all its own. Eliot can smell—_butter_, of all things; and evergreens: not like that burst of burning juniper when Quentin is casting; but—but the kind that lingers, instead: a forest, made up of spruce and pine and cypress, heady and sharp: their taste still living in the spellwork, a century after the casting itself. It's an energy that—well, in a lot of ways, it isn't really like Quentin's energy at all; but Eliot can certainly imagine it coming from a Coldwater, can't he: from the sort of Coldwater who maybe was responsible more firmly for the wacky-sense-of-humor side of Quentin's personality, and probably less involved in the whole depressive-mollusc-who-reads-Russian-novels side of things. From the sort of Coldwater, in fact, whose tap into the familial spring of nerdiness manifested in the creation of overelaborate magical clocks; or in clumsy yet enthusiastic letters about his erections. 

In that terrible mustache. 

"Well—there actually are a bunch of gears out of alignment," Quentin says, after a minute, "and all the spellwork is crusting together at the edges, but—I think that's a battery": pointing at the clock's luminous, liquid-gold heart.

"Like." Eliot shifts. "To keep the clock running?"

"Well... no," Quentin says; and tilts his head, considering. "I mean—the weights should keep the clock running. So I don't..."

He stops, looking into gears: still again. Quiet. Quentin is frowning.

"You don't," Eliot prompts, after a moment.

"I don't think it _powers the clock_ at all," Quentin says, very slowly. "If anything," he says, "I think _the clock_ is powering _it_."

Eliot looks at it. Throbbing gently, just left of center: flickering, almost, like firelight. "What for?" he asks.

"I don't know yet," Quentin says; and then catches Eliot's wrist. "Don't touch it—remember that postdoc who blew up the Xhang-Foster wing?"

"I thought a dragon was involved in that," Eliot says; and Quentin squints. 

"Really? I heard it was one of Fogg's pet projects—anyway," Quentin says, squeezing Eliot's fingers, "just—don't touch it. Not until we know what it does": as Eliot drops his hand to Quentin's thigh, instead. Quentin sighs. "I should probably cast something that'll make this look more normal, but—I'm still terrible at illusion work," he admits. "And—"

He stops. Frowning again.

"And?" Eliot prompts. The illusion work, he can help with, at least: between the two of them they've more or less got one competent illusion worker. But the "and"...

"Okay," Quentin says, after a moment. "Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that you're right. Matthew was a magician, and he built this clock, and he did all the spellwork himself—or, well, he couldn't've done it by himself, probably, so he used—one of your honeycombs, or someth—wait, are they that old?"

"Uh—Hewlitt and Mells were... the 30s, I think? Maybe the 20s? History is not my strong suit." Eliot pretty much made it through his orals and then more or less blocked all that shit out. "But they didn't actually come up with the idea, just refined it, so—" Eliot waves a hand. "He used a honeycomb, or a cooperative capacitance of some variety."

Quentin nods. "Yeah," he says. "Right. A cooperative capacitance of some variety, like—he got Beth to help him, or I don't know, their friend, that blond kid in the photo. Whoever."

He stops again. Frowning.

"Sure." Eliot turns his hand up. Interlaces it with Quentin's. "That all—seems pretty plausible, I think. Where're you getting stuck?"

Quentin doesn't answer, for a second. Still looking down at the clock, with that taut, puzzled expression. "I just don't understand why he would've _done_ it," he says, finally.

He sounds—_unsure_, and not unsure in the way that Quentin often gets, about the mysteries of human motivation; but—_weighted_, as though he is lumbering, through a dark room, with something awkward and heavy in his arms. Eliot hesitates, wondering—

"Just—_why_? What on earth does it _add_ to it," Quentin says, with a sudden burst of feeling, "if enchanting the clock just fills it up, with—with a bunch of badly-isolated spells that'll leak into each other and don't—honestly, half of them don't seem to _do_ anything at all, except _direct things_, which is—"

"Wayfinders?" Eliot asks, straightening; but Quentin waves this away.

"No, not like you mean, they're nothing like we learned in PA, they just sort of—suggest that _a thing_ should go in _a direction_—and no, I'm not generalizing, here: they really are structured _just like that_. I mean, they're like 90% composition variable by volume—or, well, they're _supposed_ to be," Quentin corrects. "But—since spell plasticity tends to fade over time..."

"They've locked up," Eliot finishes; and Quentin nods.

"Yeah," he says. "So at this point you can't—redirect them, or anything." Breathing in. "Now they're just," he says, finally, "a mess"; and then rests his thumb against a stabilization sigil under a cluttered little knot of clockwork, looking almost—almost like stitches, Eliot thinks: again, again: as though it has been stitched into the wood.

Eliot slides his palm up: hip. Spine. When he wraps an arm around Quentin's shoulders, Quentin leans into it, shifting around until he can rest his cheek down against Eliot's shoulder.

"You can fix them, though," Eliot says. Not a question.

"Yeah," Quentin says; and then huffs. "Convenient, honestly. Me being." He sighs. "Me," he says, resigned.

"Yeah," Eliot agrees; and then kisses Quentin's temple. "It's pretty convenient for me, too," he says, quiet. "You being you": and Quentin closes his eyes.

Eliot rests his cheek on Quentin's hair. Rubbing at his shoulder. Up to the back of his neck.

"This really bothers you, doesn't it?" Eliot asks, after a minute; and Quentin sighs.

"No. Yes." He sighs again, shifting. Snuggling in. "No—I mean," he explains, "I'd be—_delighted_, honestly, to find out that my relatives were magicians, you know?"

"Yeah," Eliot says, quiet; even though he doesn't. Who, he is thinking: any one of his large assortment of drunk, muscular cousins? Their bleached-blonde sisters and wives? _Marianne_, maybe? Or perhaps that beloved family icon—and famed local neo-Nazi—Great-Uncle Joseph? He'd once called an eight-year-old Eliot a "pussy" at a family barbecue—which was pretty tame, honestly, by Joseph's usual standard of abuse. If Eliot ever found out any of _them_ had been magicians, he'd probably punch magic in the throat. He's not sure how he'd go about doing that, but. He'd find a way.

"I just feel like." Quentin shifts again: restless. Anxious. "If I _did_ come from a family of magicians," he says, hesitant, "shouldn't I—_know_? Shouldn't—shouldn't someone have _told_ me that? Before—"

He stops.

Eliot rests his cheek against Quentin's hair. _Before_, he is thinking, in Quentin's voice: _before_.

"I don't know, baby," Eliot says, very quietly. Tightening his arm. "I'm sorry."

Quentin shakes his head, a little. Not answering: just staying—close, and warm, and—_wanting_: they should get up. Pick up the paper scattered all over the kitchen floor; do whatever illusion work Quentin wants, before Rachel comes back upstairs with her laundry— 

"Maybe there's more in the letters?" Eliot offers, hesitantly; and Quentin sighs, burrowing in against Eliot's chest. 

"Yeah," Quentin says. "Maybe." 

His breath is warm, against the base of Eliot's throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sour Cream Pancakes](https://anonym.to?https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/edna-maes-sour-cream-pancakes/).


	4. unexpectations.

### 4\. unexpectations.

#### Tuesday, December 26, 2017

At 5:30 in the morning, like always, Eliot's phone alarm goes off.

He scrambles up to slap it off in the dark; and then—eyes still barely open—he tugs the duvet back up to Quentin's chin.

Showered and shaved and fucking—armored for his day, Eliot thinks—all right. He can do this, can't he? It's not that big a deal: he's just going to—go to work, just like every Tuesday, and then he'll—ride the extra distance out to O'Hare, hopefully, on his way home, to collect Margo; or—or Quentin will do it, if Eliot's still stuck in the office, when she finally gets a flight through: and the roads will clear and Rachel will—have tacos with them, or something, in the evening; and then—then she'll head out for home, drive all night, and he and Margo and Quentin will fall asleep in a heap and tomorrow he'll be a little hungover at work. So—that's fine. Perfectly doable.

Standing in the kitchen, just at the edge of the light, eating peanut butter toast in between sips of coffee with one end of a paper towel wedged into his collar like a particularly unstylish cravat, Eliot's attention keeps—catching. On the clock: still just where Quentin had left it, with all the letters and photos gathered up into an untidy heap at its side: the back panel's still open, isn't it. Just draped, casually-cautious, in that old inky-blue sheet of Eliot's that Quentin's been using in lieu of a dropcloth. But even with that doughy warm-butter smell, just lingering at the edges of his nostrils; and knowing everything Matthew'd stuck into it; it still seems—ordinary, somehow, in a way Eliot can't describe: even though—it's _literally magic_, isn't it? Very nearly the least ordinary thing in his life. All those people—those silhouettes, in the bottom window: shadowy and unmoving, but with those _patterns_, all over them: the woman in the cross-hatched fabric-cape, blowing out around her like her heavy hair in the wind; or—opposite her, a woman in—God, it looks like a full suit of armor, basically, on the right: she's crusted with little shivery pieces like scales, hard and shiny; and well, Eliot thinks, who isn't; and then takes another sip of coffee. And that couple. That couple, down in front: who still just fucking—prickle him up, every fucking time: that's _us_, he thinks, that could be _us_: over and over and over again: him, with Quentin's head tucked just where it goes just under Eliot's chin; their scarves printed all over with—with those designs: not the same, he thinks. Not the same as each other. But—an echo, a fucking—_repeating motif_: half-moons and sprinkling water, cupped hands catching teardrops, umbrellas dripping rain: not the same as each other, but—but a kind of mirror: the taller figure dressed in a pattern like droplets, all over him, balanced by the curved half-moons in its ground; and the other covered in circles, split—reversed—flipped—tipped—inverted, with a shape almost like water welling up in the spaces between them. And the taller one, Eliot notes, is just straight-up wearing the wrong pattern on his tie.

Magic is—funny, sometimes, he thinks: the tricks it plays. March had gone on for about fourteen fucking years about what you brought to it, back in first-year foundations; so it's not like Eliot doesn't _understand_, really, why the pattern looks to him so much like it's been _sewn in_. He gets it. He's a fucking fashion plate, isn't he? He's been making his own costumes since—Christ, since he was about—seven, probably: fussy about the cut of his jeans, and the drape of his shirts, mostly because _God_, he wouldn't've wanted anyone to've thought he was _gay_. Setting aside the extreme irony of an elementary schooler asserting his rampant heterosexuality via the unlikely medium of a well-tailored plaid button-down: it makes sense, doesn't it? that that's how the magic would show itself, to him? Two fucking decades, of using a battered old Bernina to make himself be what he wanted to be: like, God, it's not like he _doesn't_ remember how much _time_ he'd spent relining an inherited suit jacket, or re-hemming his pants every time he surprise-shot-up another inch: he'd _towered_ over his mom before he'd even hit sophomore year, hadn't he? Had to hunch himself nearly in half, it'd felt like, over her sewing machine: using every trick in the sullen-teen book to get her to show him how to alter that musty-smelling second-hand leather coat—

Anyway. It doesn't matter. The point is just—he's sewn a lot, that's all. So stitches make sense, don't they? That that's what the magic looks like to him.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/stitches)

[Stitches make sense, don't they?](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/stitches)

He's so fixated on it that he jumps, a little, when Quentin's hand brushes his back: but he turns, glancing at the unmoving heap of blankets on the pullout, and then ducks down for a soft, scratchy-edged kiss.

"You don't have to be up, yet," Eliot whispers; but Quentin just cuddles in close to him, shaking his head: "S'okay. I get to see you," Quentin mumbles. "I'll go back to sleep in a bit." 

Eliot swallows. Brushes a kiss over Quentin's forehead. Wraps an arm around his back.

"You think you can fix it, now?" Eliot asks, quiet; "Now that you know, I mean"; and Quentin tilts his head.

"Probably. Or—figure out how, anyway." He yawns, and then presses his face down into Eliot's chest. "If I need a boost, you can help me later?"

Eliot nods. "Or we could use a honeycomb," he suggests; and Quentin tips his face up.

"Which we would cast—where, exactly?" he asks, squinting a little; and then he tips a significant nod towards the couch.

Eliot huffs. "I don't know": a half a laugh. "The bathroom, or something?"

"I mean—" The corner of Quentin's mouth dimples. "If we wanted to co-cast, we could always do it the _other_ way, in the bathroom," he suggests, very low; and Eliot—

"That's costing you a star," Eliot tells him; and Quentin presses his face down, snickering, while Eliot steers him over to the coffee maker, to get it set up for a second cup.

He catches sight of the microwave clock: not even quarter to seven. Huh. "Did I shave?" he asks, worried, touching his chin: Quentin's fingers, following: "Yeah," Quentin says. "You did. Why?"

"Where'd I come up with an extra fifteen minutes?" he asks. "Did I forget my eyeliner?"

"No, you look great. Although—" Quentin tugs the paper towel out of his collar. "You set your alarm a half-hour back, remember? On Saturday. Just, uh—just in case."

He's turning very pink, because of course he is: because only Quentin could actively propose that Eliot fuck him in the shower with his mom in the apartment just so Q could borrow from Eliot to fix a magical clock; but then turn around and blush about how on Saturday Eliot had made the—very wise, he'd thought, at the time—decision to sacrifice a half-hour of extra sleep on his weekday mornings for a chance to go down on him twice a day, instead of just once. Oh what halcyon days. Eliot squeezes the back of Q's neck, licking over his own bottom lip: Quentin's eyelashes fluttering shut. Christ, he should need a _license_ for that.

"She's still asleep now," Eliot notes; and Quentin blinks up at him, and then—looks down.

"But you're all—put together," he says, very low, and then—fidgets, a little. Getting redder: and very, very obviously starting to plump up, under his pajamas.

"And that does it for you, hmm?" Eliot murmurs. Quentin just—tightens his hands in the front of Eliot's vest, and Eliot huffs a laugh. "Okay," he says, "that is—a thing that I will. Keep in mind, but—I don't think fifteen minutes is quite enough time for that." He puts his hand over Quentin's, unwinding his fingers: "No mauling the merchandise," he says, gentle, and then kisses Quentin's knuckles instead. "I more meant—if you do get it fixed today, where do you think you want to hang it?"

Quentin squints up at him; and Eliot shrugs.

"Old trick," he says. "Hang a simulacrum—it's how Margo and I put up her shelves. You can screw right through it, and if you're using magic instead of a drill, it's quiet. Won't wake anyone up."

"Mm. Clever," Quentin says; and then, lower, "Sexy": and Eliot's only human, so—they have to spend probably about a third of his extra time kissing, just for that. But that still leaves them with enough time to string together a little quick-dispell illusion work, taking turns backing all the way down towards the bathroom, to get a good look at the position of the clock just inside the door from the landing: with the bookshelves taking up so much of the hall, it's probably their best blank spot of remaining wall. Eliot squints at it; gestures up-up with his left hand, so Quentin tilts the illusion a little; and then—that's it, Eliot thinks: so he comes back over so he can trade places with Quentin, and Quentin can look it over, before giving him the thumbs-up. Quentin does the spell to set the screws, because he's always had a knack for things like that; there's a joke there, but it's pretty cheap, so Eliot holds himself back. Somehow.

Eliot winds up with just enough time to make himself another cup of coffee to take: sliding on his coat, shouldering his satchel, while Quentin leans against the wall in his pajamas, holding Eliot's travel mug, pink-faced. "You make a lovely cup holder," Eliot murmurs; and then kisses him: Quentin nips, retaliatory, at the meat of his bottom lip.

"Mm." Licking back over it. "You usually get a lot crosser when I do this to your lapels"; and Eliot pulls back, looking down at him, clutching at Eliot's jacket and looking up: a little too close; his blurry lovely familiar face. 

"It's just so hard to muster the appropriate level of annoyed," Eliot explains, "through this flood of oxytocin": and Quentin jerks his face down to Eliot's shoulder, muffling a half a laugh.

Eliot kisses his hair. His temple. His—mouth—

Quentin pulls away, just a little. Soft-eyed, he brushes a thumb across Eliot's bottom lip; then looks back up: smiling, pink-cheeked and sweet. "You need me to, uh." Quentin licks over his own mouth: _illegal_—. "Tell your mom there's a sale on yarn at Jo-Ann's and then cast an unplottable on the apartment, or something?" Quentin suggests.

Eliot raises an eyebrow. "Isn't that from _Harry Potter_?"

"Yeah, but I mean—it's real, too." Quentin shrugs. "It's mixed into the Brakebills wards. Julia and Gretchen kept pranking each other with it, all fall, hiding each other's research."

Eliot nods. Kisses him again, just—just because.

"You okay with her being here?" he asks, quiet; and Quentin's eyes widen.

"Me?" He laughs. "I—of course, Eliot. It's just—it's your call."

Eliot nods again. Petting, gentle, at the tender strip of skin behind Quentin's lovely ears: "If the weather's still bad, she should stay, right?" Eliot asks. Quiet; and Quentin—shifts.

"Didn't we already have this conversation?" Quentin asks. "Before the funeral"; and Eliot's ribs clench tight. "She shouldn't stay if it hurts you," Quentin says: an echo—very low—of Eliot, almost a year ago; and Eliot.

Takes a breath.

"No," he says. Sighs. "No, Q, it's—it's really not like that, I swear." He kisses Quentin again: once, gentle; and then again, a little wetter; and then again: just resting his mouth against Quentin's rough, familiar, warm mouth.

With Eliot—overheating, a little: in his apartment, inside his coat.

Eliot pulls back. "I'm okay," he says. "Really. We're okay." Brushing that dumb little flip of hair back, off of Quentin's beautiful face: "No," Eliot decides. "She should stay. No one should go—anywhere, probably, right now. If they can't get there on the train."

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Eliot makes it in early enough to set things up: and he was brainstorming with Quentin in the dark a little, last night after they went to bed, so this time he has a plan: Amahle's snowglobe. He knows her dad made it, one for her and one for her brother, but all's fair in love and junior staff prank wars; and besides, it's not like enchanting it to show a beach scene instead of the family home in the snow will actually cause it any permanent damage. Eliot checks the time on his phone: just long enough that he should still be able to run down to Starbucks, after. He slides his satchel off his shoulder, rolls up his sleeves, and reaches over to pick up the snowglobe—

—and _fuck_: flinching back.

Eliot shakes his hand. Shakes it. Pinpricks, still rippling out everywhere over his fingertips—

Which, right. Which makes sense, because—Amahle's like Alice, isn't she? The daughter of well-heeled academic magicians, still living in a full-size copy of the house in the snowglobe (three storeys; columns out front; about 4729 huge sparkling windows) somewhere out near Ann Arbor: and since Amahle _doesn't_ hate her parents, Eliot forgets, sometimes, to really think through what that actually means. That little desktop photo of her and her mom and her brother with their dad—well, stepdad, technically—all clinging to each other in Millennium Park in the sunshine: smiling so hugely that all their eyes are crinkled up, so happy they can't see. So. So Eliot's probably not going to be able to enchant her dad's snowglobe, is he. 

Well—okay, he thinks.

He has some other ideas.

By the time he gets back from Starbucks, Amahle's in. Sitting up in her chair with her 'fro tied back in a very pretty orange-and-green floral scarf like a headband, holding a green highlighter cap between her teeth. "You didn't go into the conference room, did you": she says, not really making it a question. "When you came for the, the—"

"The card?" Eliot drops the Starbucks card on its lanyard on his chair for a minute, and then sets down the carrier trays. "Nope. Why?"; and Amahle waggles her eyebrows.

"There is some _drama_," she says, her voice pitched low: leaning forward in her seat.

Which. Tuesdays are usually less crazy than pretty much every other day in their office, but what Amahle means by "drama" is that their three quiet days with everyone just taking a bit of a breather, enjoying a very brief pause, had been brutally terminated by, first, Raj coming in to find his desk _literally buried_ in a sea of politely-worded memos in Gill Sans, signed with a series of really excellent magical forgeries of the Head Librarian's signature (so, like, if Library reformation ever turns out to be not Alice's thing, she can apparently look forward to great success in a life of crime); followed, very promptly, by Georgie discovering that the hutch in the second-biggest conference room had been completely overrun by increasingly frantic rabbits from Benedict Pickwick: now arranged in no order whatsoever and all _extremely_ cross, after three days straight of eating all their complimentary carrots and pooping on the carpet. 

"He _just_ got promoted to Head Mapmaker," she says, "on like... Tuesday, or something, of last week. And then on Friday night, all the initial on-site planar shear anchors reacted to the combination of dual full moons and an easterly wind and made it rain candy." Amahle's eyebrows lift, as she sips her peppermint mocha. "Which _sounds_ great, sure—"

"Uh, no?" Eliot laughs, a little, shifting in his chair. "Mostly it sounds like a cleanup _nightmare_—"; and Amahle points at him with her highlighter.

"That," she agrees, "is _exactly_ the problem. And they don't have—you know." She nods, wordless, at the glass wall to the conference room, where Cody—definitely the most useless of the junior staff, if not actually the most junior—is frowning over the wrist movement for Jowett's Scourgification—so, Lu's in, then, even if Eliot hasn't actually seen her yet.

Eliot clears his throat and turns back to face her. "Should I remind him that that's going to aerosolize the rabbit crap, or..."

"Um, excuse me, Eliot," Amahle says, very earnestly, "I don't know if you know this, but he was second in his class at the Chantesonnerie": and Eliot throws a paper clip at her; just as— "Oh, good," Amahle says, pleased. "I think he just figured it out."

"I'm sorry," Lu says, just at Eliot's back: he jumps; "but I could _swear_ I was paying you to recalculate the isolation circumstances for those shear anchors"; and Eliot wriggles her tall decaf out of the cardboard carrier, and then turns to—

—practically dump it all over the both of them, heart slamming up into his throat, because—fortune-telling isn't, Eliot knows, actually in any way real: not even horomancers can predict the future in any meaningful way, the Extended Heisenberg-Rúnarsdóttir Thesis, blah blah blah, but Lu is definitely wearing. A cape. Like, an actual full-on _cape_—with the same asymmetrical drape as the woman in the clock, even; only Lu's is charcoal wool lined in a very, very dark velveteen, almost black, but with just enough purple in it to pick up the pinstripe in her waistcoat. _X, of course_, Eliot thinks, blank: _for Ximénez_. On the other side of their desks, Amahle is saying, "Yes, Jefa," as she smoothes open her moleskine. 

"And that sarcasm better be free," Lu says; and Amahle bends back down over her desk, half-hiding her grin, as Lu slides her gaze—scornful, amazing—back over to Eliot, and up: probably not giving him _quite_ enough time to get his expression under control.

"Coffee!" he says; with his voice—ugh, _God_, he thought he'd trained himself out of that by now. He clears his throat, as Lu takes it, looking at him.

Having Lu examine him always makes Eliot feel like a gangly tangle of limbs and neuroses, like he's fourteen again, and growing faster than they can re-hem Goodwill jeans. Lu might own a gold lamé guayabera—she likes to wear it to client meetings—and have the kind of heavy lines around her eyes and mouth that you only get from smiling, a lot, enthusiastically; but even if she wasn't _also_ on the Alma board and an AIA Gold Medal-winning architect and a fucking _brilliant_ magician, Eliot strongly suspects that getting the full force of her attention would be a little bit like being run over by a hay baler. 

"Do you always have the Leishman Anti-gravity Vortex ready to go," Lu asks, "or was that a special occasion?" She's wearing purple-and-black wingtips, he notes; and her trousers are pegged, zoot suit style.

"Oh, well," Eliot says, "there are other options, if we'd _wanted_ to make the Cottage floors into a vodka slip-and-slide—": and then stops, when Amahle kicks him under their table. "Um. Just." Eliot laughs, a little. "...Welters, probably," he says at last, very weakly. 

His face hot.

"Hm." Lu pushes her curls back, and then checks the side—yes, it is decaf, he has _met_ her, thanks—before taking a sip of coffee. "Did you use petty cash or the Starbucks card?"

"Starbucks card," Eliot says: picking it up. "I was just going to put it back": because he doesn't have the petty cash key, but they keep the Starbucks card on a lanyard in the file drawer with all their office supplies.

"Good." Lu nods. "Do the derivations for shear anchor isolation," she says. "From scratch; don't use any of Amahle's notes or calculations, and don't ask her for help—I mean, in general feel free to ask her for help, and she can tell you to buzz off if she needs to, but not on this one: I want them _triple_-checked this time, and it won't do me any good if both of you make the same mistakes": as Eliot's stomach sinks.

"Oh, uh—is Cody doing them, too?"

"No, Cody has another assignment," Lu says. "Raj is the backstop for the two of you": nodding at the door of the office Raj shares with Georgie share, "but that's on top of everything he was _already_ working on, so—if you have questions, ask me. I'd like those by three, please." Her gaze trails over to the conference room, its windows slowly clearing as Cody, red-faced and cringing, wipes them down with paper towels and a bottle of Windex. Lu takes another sip of coffee. "If I'm working with someone else or on a meeting," she says, "just make a note of where you got stuck and try to map out what you'll do next, once you have that part fixed." She sighs. "This wasn't exactly an easy moment for Pickwick to pick up that promotion, so we're all on client services as best we can today, got it?"

Eliot nods, and Lu nods, too; then knocks her knuckles against the back of his chair, tosses her cape back over her shoulder, and then heads back towards the second-biggest conference room, towards Cody.

Eliot turns back towards Amahle; who just rolls her eyes at him, holding the scarf she was using as a headband in her teeth: he winces. He's pretty sure that's silk.

"Your _massive fanboy crush_ is showing," she says, a little muffled by the fabric, so he flips her off—subtly, he hopes—and she snickers, as she ties her hair back out of her face. "Do you need to borrow Wintersgill and Varma?"

"Isn't that cheating?" he asks; and she scoffs.

"It's not helping to loan you reference material. It's not like I take _notes_ in my _books_, like an animal": to which he just—bites back a bitchier-than-necessary defense of Quentin and his reading pens; borrows her copy of Wintersgill and Varma, and then gets out his headphones.

Halfway through working out the base astrological matrices—assuming Lu as lead caster, because Lu was on a call (like, on the actual phone: probably with the head of Harvard again, explaining for about the forty-seventh time why no, thanks, she wouldn't be redesigning their engineering building), so he couldn't check, but he has been highlighting everything he'll need to change if it's Georgie, instead—Margo texts. No actual news, just some generalized ranting about Kai Seemly, who Eliot has to Google: meteorologist, apparently. _Ah_, Eliot thinks, stomach sinking. 

_No flights?_ he asks.

_eat my entire ass_, Margo replies; and Eliot scrubs the back of his hand over his forehead. He has a bunch of replies to that, but none of them seem really appropriate to the moment.

His phone vibrates. _this douchebag spends about forty hours a day on twitter_, Margo says; just before Quentin texts him two heart emojis and nothing else; and Eliot grins.

_Did you go back to sleep?_ he asks Quentin, even though he's pretty sure he doesn't need to.

"I take it you're not chatting about the weather," Amahle says; and Eliot tugs out his other earbud as he looks up. Amahle raises an eyebrow. "No _way_ you'd be smiling like that, if he was telling you how long it'd be before he'd actually get a flight"; and Eliot swallows around a tiny, lopsided pang of guilt.

"He beat the storm, actually. Barely." Eliot clears his throat. "But Margo's still stuck in New York."

"Hm." Amahle eyes him, leaning back in her chair, fiddling with a pen. "Well _that_ doesn't explain why you were here at seven-thirty, like, at all."

"We're behind," Eliot reminds her.

"Yeah, but the office would have to be actually on fire for me to come in at seven-thirty the day after a long weekend if my long-distance love was asleep in my apartment," Amahle says. "Actually—scratch that, I _definitely_ wouldn't come in if the office was on fire, long-distance love or otherwise—what'm I going to do in a fire? Besides, I have a life"; and Eliot bends back down over Wintersgill and Varma. 

"Not that much of one," he notes: voice light. "You were here at seven forty-five": and she throws his paper clip back at him.

He grins back up at her, then. Looks down again. Because—because he needs to start marking out a template grid for re-deriving the gravitational factor for Fillory's dual moons—

"Seriously," she says, scratching something into her notebook. "I was here at seven forty-five because who _knows_ when a bus will get you anywhere, in this weather. It wasn't a deliberate life choice. What's your excuse?"

He shrugs. "Surprise houseguest," he says, light; and then waves his pencil. "Whatever, it's fine. It's probably good that Margo hasn't found a flight yet, I'm not sure there's actually room for her in the apartment right now." 

Immediately after he says it, he regrets it: that's probably one hell of an opportunity missed. If he'd been a little quicker off the mark he would've kept it to himself, and then—oh no! No room in Eliot's tiny, shitty apartment! Could Amahle take Margo in?—except, of course, real life's not a romcom, is it? Just because he's thought for ages about setting Margo and Amahle up—Amahle was neck-deep in her doctorate when they'd started at Brakebills, so even Eliot didn't really know her except to nod to, before he started his apprenticeship—but probably what would happen if he did it _that_ way would be that a) Amahle would tell him to fuck off; or b) Margo would spend a couple nights crashing on her sofa while they bitched at each other about what a dick Eliot was, and, like, probably not everyone finds that erotic. It's past Christmas, anyway, isn't it. If the flights started up again, probably enough people would leave that they could shove Rachel into a hotel. 

"Anyway." He shifts. "It's fine, it's just not quite how I'd imagined spending my long weekend."

"Yeah, I get you," Amahle says, voice wry. Not looking up. "I had two sorority sisters from undergrad crashing with me on Friday—layover—and we were all pretty worried it was going to turn into way more of a visit than any of us we really wanted." 

He nods. "But they escaped?"

"Yeah." Looking down at her derivations, while she rubs at the back of her neck. "Just about the last flights out, I think."

He pencils in the correction factor for non-rotational planetoids. "Where to?" 

"Oakland and LA," she says, a little absently. "No, wait—Fiona moved. Oakland and Denver."

"You should've gone with them," he suggests; and she snorts: shaking her head as she sketches out—right. He's not supposed to be looking. 

His phone buzzes, so he looks at that instead: _is it creepy_, Quentin asks, _that I'm reading my great-great-grandparents' love notes over coffee?_

_Depends_, Eliot thumbs out, _what're you wearing?_

"If Fiona was still in LA, maybe," Amahle says; and he—doesn't jump, he thinks. Probably. Mostly. "I am, quite frankly, pretty over being constantly freezing."

He reaches over, picks up her discarded highlighter, casts la chaleur temporaire on it, and hands it back. "There you go," he says; and she laughs. 

"You should get back to work," she tells him, nodding down at his notes; and then she asks, "Do you have any erasers?" Turning to—

"Come now," Eliot says, "you know no one in this office ever has any erasers": watching, as she pulls at the handle of the top drawer of her desk—

—and the bottom one slides open, instead.

Eliot sips his coffee. 

Amahle pauses, then looks up at him; then down again. Reaches down to give something a tug: the second drawer, probably, to which—he knows—the top one will open. "Okay," she says, looking back up at him. "Does the pattern change?" She closes the second drawer, and then pulls at the top one again, and the bottom drawer slides out: heavy, groaning. "Okay, Waugh," she says; an eyebrow lifting. "Annoying, but otherwise _super_ weak. I've only got three drawers. This isn't exactly, like, the New York Times Saturday crossword."

"Hey," he protests: laughing, a little. "I had to think on the fly. My first plan didn't work out."

"Still weak," she says; and then: "—God damn it," when she goes for her top drawer automatically, looking for her compass.

Eliot grins. Looks down at his phone, when it buzzes. _stockings and garters and your communicator pasties_, Quentin says; and Eliot thumbs his phone open, so that shit's not all over his lockscreen, and finds the rest: _why? is that weird?_: and, just. Christ. His buzzes again, though, before he's even started to come up with a reply: _adam's got notes on all the envelopes, though_, Quentin adds, _so at least maybe I'm not the first coldwater to be a total creep_.

Eliot rubs at his face, grinning crazily. _No_, he says. _A creep wears that to the family reunion. Its different if its just you, in your kitchen_.

_yeah?_ Quentin asks. _so what does it make me if I'm in the kitchen?_

_Is my mom there?_

_nope. left a while ago, visiting her friend._

_Then_, Eliot types out, very carefully, _I think it just makes you a fun person to come home to_.

_❤️_, Quentin replies.

Just then—Cody's voice, loud and braying, comes drifting out of the conference room: so Eliot flips his phone face down, and turns back to his notebook, before he can make the terrible mistake of attracting Cody's attention. Unfortunately—

"Heyyy," Cody says, coming up behind Eliot, and slapping him on the back. "Texting at work? You shouldn't do that, you know, Waugh, it's _suuuper_ unprofessional. Hey—Amahle. Girl. Can you check over some shit on the windows for me?"

"Don't call me 'girl'," Amahle says, "and no, I can't, I don't have time. Who's supervising you on exteriors?"

Cody points a finger-gun at her, from over Eliot's shoulder: "Not cool, my friend," Cody tells her, "can't help a man in need?"; and Amahle pulls on her headphones. "Seriously?" Cody asks, raising his voice: "You're gonna make me bog _Lu_ down with this, too, _really_? When the two of us are so busy?"; as Eliot—slides his chair. Leftward, very slightly. 

"We're _all_ really busy, Cody," Eliot says. As calmly as he can manage. "Besides, I thought we were always supposed to consult with the point staff architect for sub-projects, instead of other juniors. Isn't it company policy?"

Behind his shoulder, Cody sighs, very loudly. "You two are mega bummers, man," he says, "but—that's cool, it's cool, I get it, I get it—you're the new kid, don't want to rock the boat, I get it. I'll ask Lu! Not a big deal!" he says, and then thumps Eliot on the back again before turning back towards his desk: a sleek, minimalist, obsidian-black illusion that he'd cast over one of their regular office desks and tried to talk Eliot into, too, in Eliot's first week: _It's so fucking cleansing, man_, he'd said, looking up at Eliot in his solid, wide-eyed, meaty blond way: _clear desk_, Cody had said, _clear mind_.

Eliot scrubs a hand through his hair. Looks back down at his notes. Amahle won't surface from her headphones until she's through the worst of the homicidal rage, so—lunar gravitational factor. Right. Eliot grabs two Post-Its to cover up some other parts of the calculation, and then unlocks his phone, when it buzzes: _he could've at least fucking sorted them_, Quentin complains. _it's like—two letters from beth's mom to beth from when she was pregnant, and then one from matthew to beth from when they were tiny kids, and then one from a friend of matthew's when they were at brakebills talking about getting drunk and—I'm not super up on era euphemisms, but—I'm pretty sure he's talking about prostitutes_.

Eliot's eyebrows jump up. _Your great-grandpa was into prostitutes?_

_great-great grandpa, and no, not matthew, his friend. walter. matthew... all his letters from france are like, 20% engines, 15% awful black humor about, like, people getting blown up, and then the rest is just: thighs, thighs, thighs_.

_Well_, Eliot thumbs out, _Always nice to have something to take your mind off the war._ He rubs at his forehead: he's starting to get a headache, so he reaches for his red-eye. _Text me the juicy bits?_ he asks, one-handed, and then sets his phone face-down again.

No answer, for a minute. Long enough for Eliot to work out the rest of the gravitational adjustments, before Quentin finally sends back: _yes, because *that* will make me feel less weird, about this whole thing_.

Eliot's neck prickles. _You definitely don't have to_, he says; and then—then he goes back to mapping out the astrological translations, which are _always_ a total monster: starting with the iconographic resonance mappings for Fillory's lost gods, because Margo already warned him that Ember is cross-aligned with Aries except when he isn't and that Umber never falls in even remotely the same place, so. _That's_ going to suck. Eliot's phone buzzes, but he finishes Ember's mapping, first, so checking it can feel like a reward: _don't worry_, Quentin has told him, _as soon as I want to progress to erotically calling someone great-great-grandpa, you'll be the first person I call_.

Eliot rubs a hand over his mouth. Smiling, helplessly: his phone vibrates again in his hand.

_god, I might go back to sleep. can I go back to sleep? it's almost eleven. but. I'm so tired_

Eliot rests his chin in his palm. _You could go back to sleep_, he says. _Your on vacation. And you've been working really hard_. 

He hesitates, for a second. And then—

_You could just take your letters back to bed_, he adds, before he hits send, _just see what happens_.

The very briefest of pauses. And then: _thighs, thighs?_ Quentin asks; and Eliot half-hides his phone down near the base of his abdomen: picking out, _I mean, you do you, baby_, as close to texting under his desk as he can get without making it totally obvious that that's what he's trying to do.

He locks the screen. Phone face down. Next. Um—Umber, so—

—but his phone buzzes, then, so he turns it up, quick: _maybe I'll dream about you ❤️❤️_, Quentin says; leaving behind a warm tender knot in the middle of Eliot's chest.

Well. Maybe, Eliot thinks; but—even if he didn't. Even if he doesn't, Eliot hopes Quentin can get to sleep again. Eliot wishes _he_ was asleep again. He switches back to the thread with Margo just long enough to ask, _Talk at lunch?_; and then he locks his screen again, and puts his phone back face down on his desk.

All right. Quentin's going to take a nap, so—Umber. Eliot picks up his pencil to and starts to slog his way through the rest of the translations, putting his earbuds in again just in time to not-quite-drown-out Cody, waylaying Georgie on her way to get another box of the pens she keeps transfiguring into rubber duckies (she talks to them; it's a thing; Eliot doesn't ask), before promptly starting to bray about how he doesn't really _think_ that cleaning up the _second biggest conference room_ was the best use of his education from the _Chantesonnerie_, where he was _second in his class_, but he gallantly _did it anyway_, because he is a _team player_: and Eliot turns up the spell volume on Wintersgill and Varma, and then meets Amahle's eyes across the seam between their desks.

_God, I hope I'm not that useless a white boy_, Eliot tries to convey, while only moving his eyebrows; but Amahle just rolls her eyes. Eliot isn't 100% fluent in Amahle's eyerolls yet, but he sincerely hopes that one means something like: _Oh, you're _all_ useless, but _no one_ is as useless as_ him. The problem with an open-plan office is that Eliot can't actually get clarification, since the desk Cody shares with Eunice—well, usually, when she's not out on maternity leave—is, like, ten feet away. 

Also starting to be a problem: Eliot isn't actually used to Quentin being able to text him all morning. Unlike a lot of surprises, Eliot likes this one, even if Quentin texting him excitedly about finding an early reference to the clock in a letter to Beth means, probably, that Quentin's not going to get back to sleep. _nothing about the spellwork, though_, Quentin adds. _but it's from when he was in france, so—probably would've been censored, right?_

Eliot huffs. _Your asking me?_

_he talked about it a lot with his walter friend, too_, Quentin says. _design help, looks like. asking for drawings._

"He'd better not be sending you selfies," Amahle says, when Eliot looks up to catch her watching him with a flat, unimpressed expression, just before noon. He can feel a flush trying to rise up his throat, even though Quentin _isn't_. 

"He was asking if I knew if Todd stayed on campus, actually," Eliot says. Clearing his throat. _That time_, he doesn't add.

"Who's Todd?"

"He's—oh, whatever." Eliot waves a hand. "One of the Physical Kids a semester behind me, he's—I don't know, he and Quentin are—not friends. They have some kind of weird... frenemy thing, or PA rival-ship thing, or something, I have no idea what _that's_ about; but do I ask? _No_," he says, "I do not," reaching for his water, "because I am pretty sure I don't want to know." 

"Yeah, you're just a model of relationship enlightenment," Amahle says, bone-dry; and Eliot raises both eyebrows.

"Whatever happened with Sabine, anyway?" he asks; and Amahle hisses, "_Not on the clock_"; and Eliot jiggles his phone at her; so she sits back, looking smug, and says, "_Yeah_, not on the clock, _Eliot_"; so Eliot sticks it into the top drawer of his desk, as pointedly as he's ever done anything so silly. It's not like Lu's enough of a dinosaur to care, as long as they get their work done.

It doesn't stay in the drawer for very long, but it probably didn't need to. Amahle likes to read really trashy sci-fi potboilers on her breaks, curled up on the sofa in the middle of the room, and no one comments on that, do they; and besides, Eliot's phone has mostly gone silent: Margo's busy subtweeting that meteorologist, and Quentin wasn't, actually, sending Eliot anything particularly racy; and the long, long pause after asking about Todd makes it pretty clear he's gone full in-the-zone after a new research hare, anyway. By the time Eliot and Amahle both hit their wall on functioning without an urgently-needed input of calories and caffeine, Eliot's gotten through everything he can do for the shear derivation, pending talking to Lu about the lead caster and getting her to check whether he actually picked a fully compatible set of isolation sigils, since even after Julia and Margo teaming up to more or less beat his head against their notes for a month straight, he still kind of faked his way through durable spellwork metacomposition theory on his orals. 

"Am I allowed to ask you about _that_ one?" he asks Amahle, while they're waiting for a free kiosk at Wow Bao. "Because I did do the derivations on my own, I'm just never sure—"

"Who am I, your mom?" Amahle scoffs, then shrugs: clearly not paying any attention to him, thank God; Eliot can _feel_ himself tensing up. "I don't know who you can ask what, but to be perfectly frank, if _van der Weghe_ couldn't straighten you out on durable spellwork theory in your senior seminar, there's not a lot I can do over lunch." She digs out her wallet. "Here's a thought: maybe you could, you know, _talk to Lu_."

"I _am_ going to talk to Lu," he says, stung. "But I'd prefer to _not_ seem like a hopeless moron while we're going over—"

"Eliot," Amahle sighs. "Lu wouldn't've hired you if she thought you were a hopeless moron."

"She hired Cody," he points out; and Amahle snorts.

"Never said she didn't sometimes make mistakes." She glances up at him; then looks back down to swipe her card.

It's not exactly a comfortable reminder. But—

As soon as they're done eating, Eliot parts ways with Amahle to shiver his way through giving himself delicious, delicious cancer while she goes back upstairs to kick her feet up on the sofa in the office and read. Lu is the first boss Eliot's ever had who got, like, practically fascist about healthy work-life balance: she _really_ didn't love having to tell all of them she wasn't approving vacation until after the Library project was done, so she's being kind of a gorgon about everyone taking minimum a full hour for lunch. While they were eating, Quentin had texted Eliot a couple more times: first to ask whether or not Eliot had any sepiolite, and then a poorly-lit snap of the photo they found last night of his great-grandparents at Brakebills' graduation, now with a pink Post-It note stuck on the table underneath it, marked with Quentin's neat loopy printing: _(L to R) Matthew Coldwater, Beth Porter-Wilde (later Coldwater), Walter Pratt_

_Closet shelf,_ Eliot tells him, _box over the outerwear. Stepladders behind the bookshelves_. He doesn't even have time to dial Margo before his phone vibrates again: _ty ❤️❤️❤️_. Eliot rolls his eyes. Three hearts for the stepladder is probably—excessive, honestly, it's not like he bought him, like, a house or whatever, but it still makes Eliot's chest feel—warm. Tight. _Also Pratt?_ Eliot texts back, _Poor Walter_, but that doesn't _make it go away_, does it: his whole torso still feeling wound up enough that he thinks about hanging up on Margo while it's still ringing, because Margo _always_ can see it, whenever Eliot's—

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/margo)

[Margo _always_ can see it, whenever Eliot's—](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/margo)

"Question," Margo says, as soon as she answers. "If I need to kill a Delta phone operator, will you pay my bail?"

—or. Not, sometimes. Eliot really does miss her. 

"I don't think they grant bail for murder," he points out. 

"Manslaughter at worst, I think," she corrects. "Justifiable homicide."

"Have you consulted with actual legal professionals on this issue?" Eliot asks, squinting up at the snow; then casts a quick temperature shield as Margo sighs. The next flurry of snow bursting warm against his bare knuckles.

"No," she says, glumly. "Edgar's the only real lawyer I know, and that'd probably count as misappropriation of work resources."

Ah. "Does Earth have an extradition agreement with Fillory yet?"

"Ironically," Margo says, "that is one of the things that I am supposed to be background-negotiating, in, like, a week and a half."

Eliot snorts. "That'd make a great headline," he says. "_Earth Ambassador To Fillory Murders Airline Employee, Negotiates Own Off-World Escape_."

"Uh, excuse you," Margo says. "I am very much _not_ the ambassador. _Irdina_ is the ambassador. _I_ get actual work done": and he grins.

Margo, it turns out, spent most of Christmas Day binge-watching _Search Party_ and getting into a Twitter flamewar with her meteorologist. "I did go out, though," she protests, when he tells her exactly what he thinks of _that_ one. "At night, as in, I went to a _bar_, I made out with _a human person_, which I know _you_ didn't—"

"Uh, actually, I _did_," Eliot says, half-laughing.

"I meant go out," she says. "Heavy petting with your child bride doesn't count. And if you try to tell me you went out, I won't believe you, so—"

"No, we didn't, because it's fucking _blizzarding_," Eliot protests. "Part of me keeps hoping for a snow day, but I don't think you actually get those as a grown-up. Also—he's twenty-five."

"It's like you think I don't know about the star chart," she says; and Eliot chokes, a little. "Wait—," he starts; but she's just barreling ahead: "You," she says, "should call in sick."

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/starchart)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/starchart)

[It's like you think I don't know about the star chart.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/starchart)

Which. He rubs at his forehead. "I thought about it," he admits, "except—my mom still can't get out of town. What'm I going to do, stay home all day making awkward small talk with her?" He sighs. "I'll take work, thanks."

At that, Margo hesitates for a second. "So—hold on," she says. "I'm actually just putting this together. Did you... go to work, and _leave Q with your mom_?"; and Eliot sighs again.

"I thought _I_ was supposed to be the compulsively overprotective one, when it comes to Quentin," he says; and Margo huffs. Eliot's maybe ten feet from the building door, so he takes one long last drag. "He actually is fully capable of making his own decisions about whether he prefers the rock or the hard place, you know," he reminds her, stubbing out his cigarette. 

"If your mom's the rock—"

Eliot shrugs, pushing into the lobby. "I did offer, you know."

"Like, you offered to _not_ leave him with your mom?" she asks. "Or are you talking about when you invited him to come downtown and hang out at Starbucks while you were at work, because that was like three weeks ago, and also, you know he hates Starbucks."

"Like, last night, when I asked him if he wanted to come hang out in the office," Eliot corrects.

"Aw, that's sweet," Margo coos. "It's Take Your Daddy Kink to Work Day!"

"Don't be a dick," he tells her, waving at Vicky at the front desk. "I swear Maryam wanted Lu to take this project on half to get us a portal key to the Unwritten Fiction Annex."

"Okay, fine," Margo admits. "Quentin would probably weep big, erotic tears all over you, if you got him into the Unwritten Fiction Annex."

Eliot pauses, briefly. "—anyway." He clears his throat. "When we talked about it last night, Quentin asked when I was leaving in the morning, and when I told him, he looked like I'd invited him to tap-dance for an audience in nothing but my best set of heels." Margo laughs, as Eliot heads into the stairwell. For some reason their elevator always smells like cheap hair gel and Red Vines—Eliot blames the start-up on 7—but the free bonus of always taking the stairs is that he knows no one's watching, when he dispels the warmth spells on his hands and face, shaking his fingers out. "Besides," he adds, unbuttoning his coat, "Quentin said my mom took off pretty early, so. Probably not too bad."

"Oh," she says, "_that's_—"; and then she stops.

It takes him about six steps to cave. "What?"

"Where'd she go?" Margo asks, very slowly; and Eliot can feel his mouth pull tight.

"I don't know, she didn't, like, write me a memo, or whatever." He casts an eye up towards the next landing; and the three more after that. "Originally, she was supposed to be visiting a friend yesterday, but ended up just—not leaving for _nearly_ long enough, basically": he clears his throat. "So—she's probably doing that today. Why do you care? _I_ don't even care."

Margo doesn't say anything for a second. "No," she says, finally. "I don't care. Just—what's Quentin doing, then?"

"Working on the clock, I think," Eliot says. "Or, well, recently he's been texting me bits of notes and photos he finds—he spent most of the morning snooping through Great-Great-Grandpa Matthew's old letters."

"Wait—_letters_?" Margo says, so Eliot has to catch her up on that, which takes him all the way back up to the sixth floor.

It's almost one, so he actually does have to get back to work. _I bet walter did okay, actually_, Quentin had texted him, while he was talking to Margo; along with—wow. Everyone always thinks people in Ye Olde Times were such prudes, but that's definitely a picture of Walter posing in an outrageously campy clone of the pose of the beautiful women on either side of him: a small, buxom brunette on his right and a lithe blonde—not Beth—on his left, both damp-haired and lovely in those dark, short-sleeved sailor-dresses that women wore at the beach before real swimsuits came in. Walter, too, is in one of those old-fashioned men's tank arrangements—lest any passing maidens be thrown into a swoon by the sight of an exposed male nipple—and all three of them are lying on their bellies on the sand, at an angle to the frame, with their hands tucked under their chins and one foot kicked up, toes pointed, looking alluringly up and half-over their shoulders to give the camera an extremely saucy look. Eliot laughs outright; and Amahle raises her eyebrows at him over the top of her laptop. Eliot waves a hand: _Tell you later_. 

_Do you think he lost a bet?_ he asks Quentin; and then slides off his coat.

_no idea_, Quentin says, _there's not really any context_.

_Well, two babes like that, how much context do you really need?_ Eliot asks; and then flips his phone face-down, so he can focus on the notes he made before lunch.

"Eliot," Lu says, right behind him; and Eliot suppresses—barely—the impulse to jump.

"Oh—hi, thanks." He clears his throat, and flips back to his first flagged sketch. "I needed to talk to you about a couple things, actually."

"Yeah," she says, and turns to summon a chair, which always looks completely badass when she does it and just makes Eliot look like a twit. "I saw your Slack. Walk me through your derivations."

So he does. She makes him stop halfway through the cessation sequencing for the anchor-planting, and back up, and talk her through every fucking line, which he always finds incredibly fucking exhausting, but at least he gets why she does it. He wouldn't trust him to not make a mistake, either. 

"But, uh—I think I'm still a little bit shaky on selecting isolation sigils," he admits, feeling a little bit sick.

Lu nods. "Okay," she says, and taps at the top of his sigil framework with a pen. "So—you chose 14, 91, and 98, from Wintersgill and Varma. Why?"

He laughs. "I don't—totally know," he says. Throat tight. "It's not like I had, like, a grand unified theory, or something."

She nods. "So—random number generator?"

"What? No, I'm not that bad." 

She raises her eyebrows, and tosses the edge of her cape—her _cape_, for _real_, he's not sure _he_ could pull off a cape—back over her shoulder. 

"Okay," he allows, "I—I don't know. It was—instinct, I guess, or—something I half-remember from van der Weghe's class, or something—"

"Right," she says, nodding. "So what if we swapped 91 with 71?"

"Don't 14 and 71 have wildly different geological requirements?" Eliot asks. 

Lu's eyebrows just go higher.

He sighs. "This is the part I'm really bad at," he explains. "I can remember—okay, so you can only use 71 above rocky soils, right? But—the file says Raj used 14 when you were casting the survey, and 14 likes—uh, clay, right? and, wait." He pulls out his copy of the site file. "You and Georgie marked wellspring tributaries under about two-thirds of the site, didn't you?"

"Yes," Lu says. "We did."

Eliot nods, and casts Alice's laser pointer spell to highlight the triangle between the two underground springs that don't-quite-mingle at the mouth of the clearing, and the little creek that runs through the stony foothills at its back. "I actually do remember that the whole 70 series is weak near running water," he says, "and—I think that the earlier you go in the series, the less it matters that the water be exposed, right?"

"Right," she says. "So that's two very good reasons to not pick 71. So why pick two from the 90 series?": and Eliot takes a breath.

"Is the 90 series actually right?" he asks; and she smiles, a very little; and waves a hand.

"You tell me," she says; and he swallows. 

_Mostly what I'm learning is that the Socratic method is kind of anxiety-inducing, sometimes_, he'd told Quentin, back in July. Quentin'd been rolled up in a blanket on the sofa at Julia's Posh-Girl-Slums-It-In-Slightly-Dicey-Neighborhood summer apartment, his laptop propped up on her coffee table so he could Skype Eliot without either of them actually having to be, you know. Sitting up.

_Yeah_, Quentin had told him, voice sleepy. _I hate that, too. My calc teacher used to make me cry_.

_Jesus_, Eliot had muttered, and then—managed to refocus enough to say, _I don't—hate it, exactly, not like that—it's just stressful_: which. Understatement. Finally, Eliot had said, _It's like she has a magnifying glass and a highlighter, to mark out everything I should know but actually don't_; and Quentin had just—hummed.

_I think that's normal, though?_ he'd said. He hadn't sounded totally certain. _Like—it's normal to not have everything totally straight in your brain the second you walk out of the classroom. I mean, it's your first post-grad job. Besides, people have mentors for a reason_: and a part of Eliot had thrilled, a little bit, to think that he might someday get to explain to someone that he had been mentored by _Lu Ximénez_, while Quentin was asking, _Do you still like working there?_

He'd sounded—worried. He'd sounded worried; and for some reason, that. That had been. _Clarifying_, somehow; the idea that _this_ was what Quentin was lying on Julia's sofa in Hell's Kitchen, fretting about: whether or not Eliot liked his job, whether or not he was happy; so Eliot had said, _Yeah_, in perfect honestly. _Actually—I love it. I'm learning a lot. Like, a _crazy_ amount. I keep feeling like she's—downloading her brain into me, or something_; and Quentin had dimpled blurrily at him, from over the top of his blanket burrito.

_I kind of want to make a joke about hard disk space right now_, he'd admitted, _is that bad?_; and Eliot'd actually leaned forward and kissed his laptop screen, though Quentin was always too much of a gentleman to mention it, after.

"Uh—as I remember it," Eliot tells Lu. "The 90 series all the way up through the 140 series are strengthened by water proximity."

"But you didn't choose 149," Lu points out, so then Eliot has to pick his way through everything he knows about Fillorian fauna and planting anchors with minimal environmental disruption, which segues into a possibly inevitable discussion of how to class talking animals: he'd covered all his bases, and tried to avoid using anything that had significant potential interactions with any category of animal life, sentient or otherwise. 

"I'm not sure if deer _do_ hallucinate," he explains, "but it seems like we should probably avoid finding out." 

At the end of the conversation he feels like he's run a marathon, but they've kept 14 and 91 and swapped 98 out for 32 and 96, since 96 corrects for less shear but also is less likely to leech unfiltered wellspring magic directly into the walls of the Library, which has apparently recently had a problem with a pest infestation, and no one wants talking cockroaches. 

"Okay," Lu says. "Good work. So—you tell me. Should I be lead caster, or should Georgie?"

"Georgie," he says, right away; and she smiles at him.

"Said with great certainty," she notes; and he mutters, "_God_, you're a taskmaster"; and she laughs. 

"Tell me why," she says, "and then I'll let you plan one of the sets of decorative facings."

He blinks. "Decorative facings?"

"Yes," she says. "We can't just plop down uncovered shear anchors—they'll need to be incorporated into the foundations. But we want to be able to find them later, if we need to make adjustments, so—decorative facings. Amahle, have you started your proposals yet?"

"Started the third set this morning," she says, not looking up; and Lu nods. 

"Well, we need minimum four separate shear anchors, and each of them will need a distinctive facing," Lu says, "so if Amahle's done two and a half, that leaves one up for grabs at least, Eliot—bring me two, and I'll let you and Amahle fight it out over whose proposal is best. But first," she reminds him, "I would like you to tell me why Georgie should be lead caster, and not me."

She looks at Eliot, who thinks, _Mud or Jell-O?_, he thinks, vaguely. "Uh—that, like—the whole _thing_ with Ember and Aries—"

"_Thing_?" Lu raises an eyebrow. "Proper names, please."

"Yes, sorry, I know," Eliot sighs, "sorry. I mean—the cross-alignment between Ember and Aries. It won't drop out again until 2079, so you guiding durable spellwork in Fillory comes with a lot of extra risks for blowback." 

"Good," she says, nodding: it makes him feel a little bit weird, since he's sort of cheating, a little, since Margo'd gone over it about nine times with him, before she took them to that party and he's an Aries, too, albeit barely. "And Georgie?"

"Georgie's a Sagittarius," Eliot says. "And Umber's not cross-aligned for any Earth-born magicians right now, so she's safe. Um—are we talking Fillorian aesthetics, for the facings, or the Library's?"

Lu's mouth curls. "What do you think?"; and then laughs, when Eliot just claws at his hair. "Eliot," she says, still laughing. "This is the _fun_ part. You're balancing the competing aesthetic demands of three separate cultures: the Library's, Fillory's, and ours." Lu straightens her tie. "Finding the point where they balance is what makes the project interesting."

"Yeah, but the Library is, like—_psychotically_ picky about their aesthetic," he points out; and she raises her eyebrows again, looking him over: shoes. Trousers. Waistcoat. 

"Okay," Eliot says, after a second, "point taken."

She laughs again. "There's nothing wrong with being picky about your aesthetic," she says, and tosses her cape back over her shoulder.

"I do like the cape," he admits; and then shifts a little. "Christmas present?"

"Yes," she agrees. "Nice, no? And stop changing the subject." She tilts her head. "Can you get me facing sketches by tomorrow?"

"Yeah." He shifts a little; wishing—she's still watching him, with her diamond-sharp eyes.

"'Yeah' as in, 'yes, Lu, I can work a sane number of hours today and still get those to you tomorrow afternoon', or 'yeah' as in—"

"Honestly, if I have to work tonight, it's fine": Eliot waves a hand; laughs, a little. "My mom's visiting and otherwise I'll have to talk to her, so you're, like, doing me a favor, basically": as Amahle—

—looks up.

_—oh_, Eliot thinks: into the hollowness of the pause after. 

It makes Eliot feel—he doesn't know. Awkward; prickly. It's not like it's—a secret, or anything, but Amahle's _expression_—

"Sorry," Eliot says, finally. "That was a joke."

"Yeah, but you're still not funny," Amahle says, immediately.

"I know." He nods. "Tall, dashing, handsome, _not_ funny—a life-long tragedy, really": and she rolls her eyes.

"Well," Lu says, "the facing sketches actually aren't an emergency, but it's your business, what you do after you leave the office." She stands. "If you want to get a sense of what the rest of the building's going to look like, the sketches waiting for client approval are all being collected in the Book": waving a hand at the huge, elaborately-tooled brown-leather tome that sits on a podium next to the best window in the office. "And if you ask nicely, Amahle _might_ be willing to show you her drafts."

"If he does the fourth set of facings, he can see whatever drafts he wants," Amahle says, after a second. "Including the, like, fifty-seven you've already rejected": and Lu nods, decisive. 

"Excellent," she says, "teamwork, now that's what I like to see"; and raps her knuckles against the edge of Eliot's desk, before heading back into her office.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

The 'sane hours' claim was, Eliot thinks, probably overambitious: he's not anywhere near done by the time Raj leaves at five—they have to do so much of this project in tandem that the whole office agreed to shift early for the duration, just so that sometimes Raj can actually get home to see his kids before bed. But Georgie takes off just behind Raj, and Lu always gets annoyed with the junior staff if they're still working when _she_ goes home, so as soon as Georgie's out the door, Amahle and Eliot meet each other's eyes, and start packing up. 

On the way home, he thumbs open his phone: nothing new from Quentin since around 2, when he'd texted a blurry pic of the top window, shutters open: a hard-to-parse mess of smudges and squiggles on a dark background: navy blue, probably, or maybe a hunter green. _it's playing a song_, Quentin had said; and Eliot had texted back a whole bunch of exclamation points and emoji party poppers—Quentin doesn't judge—and then asked, _What song?_ but the next thing he'd got from Quentin was just, _pizza for dinner?_, right as Eliot was getting on at Clark and Lake. 

The apartment's quiet, but not in a, like, empty way: "Q?" he calls, hanging his keys up, and then pulling the footstool out to unlace his boots: it's probably unnecessarily. It's not that big of an apartment.

"Kitchen," Quentin calls back; so Eliot finishes changing his socks and goes over. "Hey—mm." Quentin rubs, a little, at Eliot's ribs through his vest; sighing into the kiss, and then out of it again. Smiling. He's sitting at the kitchen table next to Eliot's smaller mixing bowl, slightly dirty; two half-drunk glasses of red; and his laptop, open to GrubHub.

"Hey, you." Eliot nods at the screen, petting Quentin's hair back. "Still trying to pick?" and then, "—_Jesus_:" gasping, staggering against the table: as behind him on the desk the clock makes a brief whirring-clicking-clattering noise and then blares into song: a truly nightmarish rendition of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," as played by a honky-tonk piano in hell.

"Yeah," Quentin says, flat. "So. Aren't you glad I fixed it?"

"_Oh my fucking God_," Eliot gasps, his heart still pounding; as Quentin leans around him to cast.

"Audio muffler," Quentin explains, as the volume drops: not gone, but—_way_ less awful. "I couldn't remember the hook for persistence, so I had to get Julia to write it out in parts so she could text it to me," Quentin is saying, "and Jules said it works best if you cast it during the noise in question. Besides—I mean, I couldn't exactly cast it while your mom was knitting on the sofa."

"Crocheting," Eliot corrects, barely listening: his heart is still going ten thousand miles per hour. Then he realizes: "—wait. Where is she, anyway?"

"Laundry room," Quentin says. "She thinks she lost a sock in the dryer." Which—it's not like she couldn't borrow a pair; but—reaching up to brush over Eliot's ass, Quentin is already saying, "And—the timing's been super lucky, too, honestly—I looked it up." Squeezing his hip. "That wasn't written until the sixties," Quentin explains, "so—all afternoon I've been freaking out that she'd be here when it went off. Every hour. I'm not sure _what_ we'll do, if it keeps going off all night, honestly, but—at least now it's quieter."

Eliot presses his palm to his chest: thump. Thump. Thump: "I wouldn't worry," he manages. With. Some difficulty. Breathing in, slowly: he's—finally calming down, he thinks, maybe. "I'm pretty sure she won't recognize it," he admits. "Music—isn't really her thing": pushing off the edge of the table to get another glass for—oh, Quentin left one out, by the bottle. Sweet of him.

Eliot fills it up; just as, in the hall, the door creaks open, then thuds shut: "Found it!" Rachel calls: cheerful, a little winded. "I'd dropped it in the hall," she explains, coming in with the sock in hand: smiling, pink-cheeked, over at Eliot.

Eliot—swallows. Turns—back, to set the bottle down, and then back to look over at Quentin. "So," Eliot says. Laughs. "Where're we getting dinner?"

"Ah," Quentin says. Slides his chair over, a little, so that Eliot has room to slide into the chair on Quentin's far side, with his wine. "The issue," Quentin is explaining, "is that—you have stumbled on a perhaps insurmountable gap between us—"

"Which is that Quentin is wrong," Rachel agrees, nodding, "about pizza": as she comes over to snag her wine off the table.

"Hey," Quentin says, mock-warning. Pointing a finger at her: "I'll have you know that this _entire city_ agrees with me, so—"

"Deep dish is awful," Rachel says. "It was awful when I was a kid, it's still awful now—honestly, it's just like—a _giant slab of calories_, instead of, like, a meal—"

Eliot blinks. "You don't like deep dish?"

"_No_, I _don't_," she says: exasperated. "It's terrible. And—honestly, New York must be so disappointed in you, Quentin"; while Eliot is thinking: but—we _always_ got deep dish. When I was little.

"Seriously." Quentin leans back in his chair, looking up at her. "How can you not like a pizza _with more cheese_?" he asks; and Rachel tilts her head.

"Well," she says, "the pills can only do so much, so—lactose intolerance, for starters"; as Quentin hunches over his laptop, giggling—helplessly; as Rachel—

—is smiling down at him: eyes soft. Face gentle.

It's so—_weird_, Eliot thinks. It's just weird. It's really, really weird: the kind of weird that feels—unreal, almost. Like—he's secretly starring in a reality-TV adaptation of _The Twilight Zone_; or accidentally wandered through a portal into another world; vertiginous, impossible: that Quentin might be saying, "Okay, well, you're still wrong—," still giggling a little, "—but I guess I can accept that. Want to pick?"; while Eliot's mom says, "Big of you," still fucking—smiling at him—like that—

"So, um." Eliot shifts, a little; as Quentin nudges his laptop towards Rachel, as she leans down over the table. "You got the top window working."

Quentin tilts his head a little, eyebrows lifting; but Eliot—can't quite—think of anything else to say; and after a second, Quentin's face softens. "Yeah," he says. Brushing his palm over Eliot's jagged wrist. "Makes a scene on the hour, every hour. The little—sky animation is pretty cute, though."

"Oh, I missed it again, didn't I," Rachel says, distractedly. Not looking up. 

"Well, it'll go again at seven," Quentin says, very dry; and then mouths at Eliot, _Hopefully less loudly_; and Eliot—snorts, halfway to wine coming out his nose: stinging. He's not sure why, honestly. It wasn't really that funny.

"Oh, hey—this place does both," Rachel says, looking up from Quentin's laptop. "Everyone can get what they want."

"Ooh, great!" Quentin says; and then, lacing his fingers up with Eliot's, "Next stop: world peace."

Which ignores, of course, that there is some moderate follow-on topping-related wrangling; but eventually they order two pizzas, one small thin crust with green peppers and extra sausage and one medium deep-dish with mushrooms—"Maybe we should just get the mushrooms on half," Quentin says worriedly; but Eliot waves a hand: "No, no, it's fine, you can just pick them out of my slices—they never put enough on for you anyway"—and olives. Eliot has dibs on one slice of Rachel's, but honestly, just for the sausage: _he's_ not lactose intolerant, and deep dish is delicious.

The whole thing just still feels so surreal: sipping his wine, while Rachel snags his mixing bowl to refill it from a bag of Trader Joe's popcorn that's been hanging out, unopened, in his cupboard since like September; but which they have already eaten the better part of half of; Quentin leaning into Eliot's side at the kitchen table and saying, "I could put the music back on—"

"It's my turn, young man," Rachel says, mock-stern, coming back over with the popcorn; and Quentin gives an aggrieved sigh, tipping his face up toward Eliot: "We had to institute a change-phones-on-the-hour policy," he explains. Reaching out for the bowl. "Because all afternoon," Quentin explains, between bites, "she kept trying to get me to listen to _country_—": the bottom plummeting out of Eliot's stomach—

"Fleetwood Mac is not country!" Rachel is laughing, pressing up onto her toes. "And here I thought I was just setting the scene," Rachel says: fumbling for the power button on Eliot's speakers. "They're a classic. Historical. Probably your grandpa listened to Fleetwood Mac, while _he_ was going through the letters." Eliot wonders if he should tell her there's a remote in his desk drawer.

"Oh, I mean, he probably _did_," Quentin says, voice glum; and Eliot squeezes his shoulder. 

"Records?" he guesses. Quentin had inherited a bunch from Ted, and half of them were older than him—

"Oh, no," Quentin says. "I mean—yes, but it's more that—my grandpa was just sort of—"

He hesitates, there, for some reason; and—it's the strangest thing. Immediately, instinctively, Eliot has—a thought; and the thought that he has is: _gay_. But—that's absurd, of course: Exhibit A, Quentin; but—

"—a hippie," Quentin says, finally: which—of course, Eliot thinks. That makes _way_ more sense. Quentin waves a hand, a little. "He—I don't know, his dad—that's—Ralph, actually, Beth and Matthew's son—he'd been in the Air Force. In the Pacific, in World War II. And Ralph was—ugh, I don't know, I never met him, but it always sounded like he was... you know, sort of, like. Pro-military and pro-nuclear and—sort of, like, _yikes_ about a lot of stuff, and then Adam and Jo—my grandma—were like. _Hard-core_ peace activists, when my dad was a kid, like—down in DC for protests, both of them got arrested a couple times, the whole thing." He shrugs, a little. "Which, you know. Here his dad is, a decorated vet—just. Family tension, ugh. _Awww-kwaaard_": sing-songing, eyes wide.

Under the table, Eliot squeezes Quentin's hand; as "Yeah," Rachel says, an odd, unreadable bend in her tone, in the middle.

"Anyway," Quentin says. Standing up. "Fine, _whatever_, Eliot always makes fun of my musical taste anyway, so—put on your dirty hippie music or whatever." 

Rachel snorts; and then looks at Eliot. "Probably you're due a turn," she says; but he waves a hand.

"I'm not actually all that picky," he says. Around the knot in his throat. Because—he isn't, actually: like, it's not like Eliot didn't—_grow up_ with her; or that he doesn't know that Quentin mostly listens to Top 40 garbage, or that he's totally unrepentant about it, but—well, Eliot can put up with an hour of Reba and Faith Hill in the interests of—domestic harmony, or whatever; and he mostly thinks it's weirdly hot when Quentin tunelessly sings Lady Gaga in the shower, so—

Rachel ducks her head. Hair falling forward; as Quentin is leaning across the table for the stack of letters—now bristling, here and there, with Post-Its. "Want to see what I found?" he asks; while Rachel is still thumbing through her phone; "Yeah, of course," Eliot says, "I want _all_ the dirt"; just as Rachel sets her phone down on the edge of Eliot's desk, just the other side of the clock, and Simon and Garfunkel comes on, very quietly.

Eliot glances over. "Um—," Quentin says. "Well, I don't know about _dirt_, exactly": resting his foot on Eliot's, as Rachel folds herself back up in the corner of the sofa, and picks up her crocheting. "But—I did find this": a photo of—oh, interesting.

It's Matthew and—the blond. Pratt: William? No—Walter. Right. The both of them are wearing tuxes, standing either side of a big, ornately-framed mirror, their arms draped up over its edges: wearing (very obviously fake) serious expressions, while the mirror shows an old-fashioned camera, the kind with a fabric hood, and behind it: a white dress, the ends of long fair masses of hair, in waves: Beth, her face hidden, as she takes the shot. 

"Oh—so _she's_ your photographer?" Eliot takes it from him. "She had an eye, didn't she?"

"I mean—I thought so, but I'm never sure," Quentin admits. "But—more and more I think it _was_ her, taking all those photos. Look at these two": laying out a pair of shots, taken of a family sitting outside, around a white table. First, a heavyset woman in Victorian blacks, turned to smile at a fair-haired balding man using a big handkerchief to polish his glasses, and just at the right edge of the frame: a hand, odd and disembodied, reaching into the picture. In the next, a blond teenager with his head turned, face blurring, reaches out past the left of the frame, arm cut off below the elbow. To the right of him sits an empty chair, and to the right of _that_ sits a white-clad child-version of Beth: maybe twelve or thirteen, staring very directly at the camera. Eliot blinks, bending down. 

"Is that a double exposure?" he asks, squinting.

"I thought it was, but—like I said," Quentin says, "I'm shitty at this stuff."

"I'm pretty sure it is," Eliot says. "Parents and—brother?"

"I think so," Quentin says. "I mean—it could be Walter, but—flip it over."

Eliot does. "'In memoriam'," he reads; and then flips it back over. That direct, blazing stare, the empty chair beside her: he shivers. "Okay, well _that's_ creepy," he says. Laughs, a little. "In memoriam for who?"

"Her other brother, I think," Quentin says. "I know she had two, and one of them died when they were kids—I'm not sure when, exactly. But there's this one, too": handing Eliot a third shot, of the family all standing beside the table, instead, and all very serious except for Beth, who is giving the camera a wide, faintly vulpine grin.

"Your great-grandma was kind of a weirdo, wasn't she," Eliot says, admiringly.

"Great-great-grandma," Quentin corrects. "But—yes. That is does sort of seem to be the suggestion. Hold on, I found one of her letters, with this snippet of—she wrote this little story for Matthew, one summer, while she was visiting family in Manhattan. It's like, straight out of _Anne of Green Gables_, or something," Quentin explains, "except—like, if Anne was a goth": and Eliot snorts, petting at Quentin's back, and then sips his wine.

"A goth, with family in Manhattan," he corrects; and Quentin bumps their knees together. 

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Always, baby," Eliot murmurs; so Quentin gives a short decisive little I-thought-so nod and then unfolds it; as Eliot.

Glances up at Rachel, just as she looks up from her crocheting.

And then down again. So Eliot turns back to Quentin, and the letter.

"June 4, 1901," Quentin reads; and Eliot takes a sip of wine, and rests an arm around him, on the back of his chair.

It's still just—weird, isn't it. Like, it's been like—ages, since Eliot sat in a room with Rachel and they just—_worked_ together. Not that they even are working together, not even that—Eliot's not even actually working. Is he. It's not—_work_, is it, to listen to Quentin read him this weirdly mundane summer-vacation letter that turns, halfway through, into a ghost story: written in exactly the same tone, like Beth discussing the hollow-eyed monkey that followed her home from Central Park is still just telling Matthew about going shopping for a new dress with her great-aunt and her grandmother. It's—a good story, Eliot thinks. Very effectively creepy—though probably if she weren't, like, twelve or something, she would've cut the part where at the end she says, _but of course nothing like that truly happened, except for my dress, which has a plaid capelet to match it, and a blue ribbon_. It's not like it's _work_, is it, to help Quentin divide the photographs into _labeled_ and _unlabeled_—and then, when they turn up a sort of annoying number in the second category, start grouping them roughly by type, instead: _group snapshots_, _nature and architecture_, _individual portraits_, and then a fourth stack, which they're loosely referring to as _Beth's art shots_, which started out as _Beth's creepy art shots_ before it became clear that the "creepy" part of that was at least three-quarters some kind of early-adolescent phase. So—all that's happening, really, is that Eliot and Quentin are sorting some old photos, and it just so happens that Eliot's mom is also there, crocheting a fucking baby blanket and occasionally tossing out a question or remark, when Quentin or Eliot says something like, _So what I'm learning here is that the Victorians really knew how to party_ ("_how_ many bottles of sherry?") or _Wow, that's a lot of kids_ ("thank God for birth control, hm?") or _Do you want more wine?_ ("oh—just half a glass, please, thank you"); it's not, really, that big a deal. It's just that—it's probably been since like—Christ, it was probably when he was doing tech for _Guys and Dolls_, the last time they were just—in a room together, companionably doing—something they both liked: back when Eliot'd first started hanging in the drama room during lunch, or later, in the auditorium, happy to help adjust lights or paint a chair just for the opportunity to not have to contend with Logan Kinnear; or—later, when Mrs. Dunkley had first got Eliot help out with the costumes, because the performing arts department never had any money, and Eliot actually had access to a sewing machine, and they'd needed all the help they could get. So—Christ. That was—what, twelve years ago now, or something? Nearly half his life: an entire creepy-Beth's worth of years ago, back in freshman year of high school: before they'd ever actually—had the poor judgement to cast him; and Rachel had just got really stiff and precise like that armored woman in the bottom window of the clock and told him that if he needed to rehearse outside of school he'd better—

The track changes; and beside Eliot, Quentin sighs. "Fleetwood Mac _again_?" he says, looking over at Rachel; who laughs.

"You can skip it, if you want," she says; so Quentin gets up, and goes over to her phone to hit skip; straight into a low slow drone of strings—

—and a shiver runs the wrong way up Eliot's spine. 

_I know that song_, he thinks, _that's—_

"Who's Rhiannon Giddens?" Quentin asks, looking up from the phone, over to Rachel; and Rachel says, "Oh—okay, well, she _is_ country, but—this is a beautiful song. Do you mind?"

And Quentin's eyes dart to Eliot's, for an instant, before he says, "Nah, it's all right." 

Eliot clears his throat. "Did you see this one?" he asks Quentin, as he comes back over: Eliot passes him a shot of Matthew, sitting under a tree with his head on Beth's shoulder: their faces tipped together, albeit half-shadowed by her truly enormous hat.

"Ooh, vintage PDA!" Quentin says, eyes going round with delight; and then sits back down next to Eliot to squint over it—"is his _hand_ on her _knee_? In the _park_?"—so at least Eliot has something to think about besides—besides his mom fucking listening to—to _Simon and Garfunkel_, or _Fleetwood fucking Mac_; and—where had she ever even _heard_ of Rhiannon Giddens? Let alone—get to know her well enough to crochet while casually humming along to "O Love Is Teasin'", albeit a little off-key? Honestly, Eliot can't even remember his mom ever listening to anything other than, like. The church choir (—he shifts—), or the radio in the truck, which was always stuck on WFMS because if they changed it—

He stands up, just as the track ends, to—to get another glass of wine. 

"You're right," Quentin says, to Rachel. After a beat. "It is a pretty song. Sad, though": as Eliot kills the bottle: they'll—need another, probably.

She smiles at him, eyes crinkling up; and then vanishes, when Eliot opens the cupboard door. "You have to allow _some_ space for heartbroken teenage girls, you know," she tells Quentin: incorporeal. Out of reach.

Quentin snorts. "What do you mean, 'teenage girls'?" Eliot shuts the cupboard; and Rachel reappears; and Eliot turns to face Quentin, who is leaning forward to snag a handful of popcorn. "I spent basically all of my freshman year of college listening to Adele on repeat and crying into my pillow because my crush didn't like me back," Quentin says, and then pops two kernels into his mouth, scrunching his nose up at Eliot. Eliot salutes him with the new bottle: freshman year. That was—Liam, probably? Eliot thinks. Not Julia? Yeah. Probably not Julia, not then.

"I think you should know," Eliot says, "that the best heartbreak album in the history of the world was written by Fleetwood Mac"; and Rachel says, "Oh—that's true, Quentin"; as Quentin raises his eyebrows at Eliot.

"And... do you anticipate me needing to know that any time soon?"

"Of course not, I'm just... trying to contribute to your cultural education," Eliot says, breezy; and Quentin's eyes crinkle up at the corners. "I was just thinking," Eliot explains, "that maybe in the new year you could—broaden your horizons": hoping to God it doesn't sound anything like the _last_ time he'd said it to Quentin, which had involved a spreader bar and a _lot_ of towels: Eliot clears his throat. "I mean—you always listen to music while you're doing your diagrams anyway," he says, digging out the corkscrew, "maybe you could try putting on something they don't play on a loop in Target": and Quentin throws a piece of popcorn at him.

Eliot catches it in his mouth, because—of course he does, he's a fucking magician; and then gives Quentin a look. No, it's—a Look™, he thinks. Hopefully. But Quentin just—lifts his eyebrows; and then—then _reaches for the bowl_, that _little shit_, so Eliot darts over, scrambling for it: "Don't you—dare," he says, as Quentin laughs and laughs and laughs, each of them trying to wrestle it away from the other, but—come _on_, like Eliot's just going to—but then Quentin grabs a handful and flicks it up at Eliot's face, too much to catch but at least it doesn't go in his eyes, and— "I should shove this down your t-shirt," Eliot manages, trying—though not very hard—not to laugh, even though—they're getting popcorn everywhere, all over the table and each other and—and the photos, probably, too—_shit_—; "Then—it'd stick," Quentin protests, "to—my skin"; "Hope so," Eliot breathes, going for—his ribs, so Quentin (forever ticklish) squeaks and squirms away: "Then—_you_'d just end up with—popcorn kernels, all over _your_ bed—," Quentin counters, wriggling away, still laughing; which is—gross, but also—Eliot bites a finger that Quentin's flailing out at his face; and then Quentin licks a long line up the salt smeared on Eliot's cheek, which— "Ugh—_nasty_, Coldwater,": but—he's laughing too hard to make it really count, probably: "I was—on the _train_, an hour ago"; and besides, he's—kissing Quentin, too (half-pinned between him and the table, still giggling—_squirming_—) which—also probably undermines any spurious claims Eliot might occasionally make to, to authority—

And then Eliot jerks back. Remembering—

—his mom, who's still sitting on the sofa, watching them: smiling and pink-cheeked and (inexplicably) _smiling_—

—as Quentin's phone rings, sharp and startling: buzzing across the table. 

"Oh—that'll be the pizza," Quentin says, straightening up: brushing popcorn kernels off his shirt, "which is good, since I'm hungry, and _someone_ spilled all the popcorn—do you see my hoodie?"

"No, no, I—it's fine, I'll go down," Eliot says: pushing up to his feet. "Um—just. Tell them," he says, jogging into the hall: coat—shoes—keys? whatever, he's a magician, fuck it— "that I'll be right there."


	5. solo.

### 5\. solo.

#### Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Eliot comes awake from a dream about swimming through a gently chiming sea of bicycles: slightly overheated, with his dick nestled up against Quentin's ass through their pajamas and Quentin's warm bare back tucked against his bare ribs, Eliot's mouth predictably full of the fluffy ends of Quentin's hair. He yawns. Stretches. Twists, to fumble for his phone—and, shit! It's nearly six-twenty, his alarm counting down the last four minutes of a snooze cycle; and all of a sudden, he's pretty sure he knows why he's been dreaming about bicycles. He lurches up to his feet, blinking and dizzy; and then staggers out into the hall. Bathroom. Start the shower: and then—his snoozed alarm goes off again in his room, _fuck_, so he has to scramble back to get it, and then. Then.

What was he doing?

He scrubs at his face. Coffee. That's. A thing, that he can put inside him, and then. Wake up, a little, he just has to—ow. Door. Which—is there because—his mom is, too, so he should. Be quiet, staggering into the kitchen: he stubs his toe twice and bangs his shin on—why is there a chair there? But at least—he grabs a mug. Pod—no. Decaf. Wrong. Different pod: fuck, like, the planet, or whatever. Pod in machine. Water in machine. Cup. Button—

—but the light doesn't come on, and nothing burbles: the fuck? Eliot picks the machine up, blinking, and water sloshes—everywhere, and—fuck. The shower's running, isn't it? _And_ he's running late for work, and—why won't this fucking—

"Mm—d'you." Quentin: next to him, rubbing at his pillow-lined forehead: "Need a hand?" he asks; and then leans in to press his face against Eliot's arm, yawning hugely.

"The fucking—I'm running late, I haven't showered, and—and now this fucking thing won't." Eliot breathes in, deep: "Actually give me any _fucking_ coffee," he says, thick: he actually is trying to keep his voice down, but it doesn't fucking. _Sound_ like it—

"Mm." Quentin tips his face up, blinking: resting his hand against the small of Eliot's back. "If only you had a boyfriend who was good with stuff like that," he says, and then gives him a smile: soft; sleepy and sweet.

Eliot swallows. "Yeah, but—you're sleeping," he says, chest tight, because—Quentin's been so tired, and—Quentin presses up onto his toes. 

"I can go back to bed later," he murmurs, against the corner of Eliot's mouth. Licking—_in_— "Go on," Quentin whispers: Eliot shivers, putting—his arms— "go get ready." Quentin kisses him, then pulls back, rubs their noses together: "I can probably get this working, by the time you're dressed."

"Christ, I love you," Eliot sighs, and then kisses him again—just the once—before scrambling for the shower.

Quentin is true to his word and then some: when Eliot comes back out—hair still damper then he'd like, draping his vest over the desk chair so he can slide his shirt off and then put it on again the right way around—Quentin immediately passes him a cup of coffee and says, "Toast's almost done," while Eliot is gulping at it, frantic. "Peanut butter?"

"God," Eliot sighs, bending forward. "You are my very favorite kept boy."

"You need to give me, like, _way_ more diamonds and spankings, for me to qualify as your kept boy," Quentin says, very lovingly; and Eliot nods, nods, nods. 

"Bookshelves don't count?" he asks; and Quentin shakes his head, whispering: "Not even a little."

Eliot kisses him. Then—kisses him— "Mm—spankings—." He kisses him again. "You are going to let me thank you for this, right?" Eliot asks. "Like—I mean, later": Quentin smiling against his mouth.

"Oral sex and tacos?" Quentin guesses; and Eliot agrees, "Order's important—all those jalapeños"; and Quentin starts snickering. Giving Eliot a tight squeeze around the middle.

"Seriously, though," Quentin says, "where," in between— "do you keep—" kisses: "your peanut butter?": and Eliot pulls back, very reluctantly; and reaches around him, to get it down. 

Quentin gives him an unimpressed look, as Eliot sets it on the counter.

"What?" Eliot kisses him again. "_You_ never fucking eat it. Peanut butter is 100% a valid high-shelf item."

"Mm." Quentin wriggles free, as the toaster pops. "But then I can't make you, like. The one meal that's covered by my culinary skill set."

"Oh, darn, guess I'll just have to get another life partner," Eliot agrees, zipping up his pants: well. Can't say Quentin's not consistent, at least.

"Yeah, remember to screen for height this time," Quentin says, nodding. "Your track record is for shit, on that one."

"Hmm, I don't know, that sounds kind of hard?" Eliot turns, to get his vest off the back of his desk chair: "Maybe I should've just bought this one a stepladder," he says; and then—

(—as Quentin snickers, behind him—)

The whole thing happens so fast that Eliot doesn't totally have time to—_process_ it: just whirr-grind-click!, as the clock shivers, _all_ the windows snapping open and then shut again: a quarter-second, maybe; maybe less; in which through the burst of brightness Eliot catches—a table—bowls—gold, only—_moving_, like—a fire? could've been a fire. A hearth, maybe; and—and—and people: he thinks. There were people. He couldn't see them, but—

—but he can feel them, he thinks: nonsensically.

He is standing, he notes, in front of his desk: damp-haired; vest open; with his hand outstretched, for some reason. He drops it, self-conscious, even though—as far as he can tell, Quentin didn't even notice. Eliot looks back at the clock. In the bottom window, the moon: half-full, now, swinging towards seven; with its light falling on the woman in the cape like, like a spotlight. A fine, golden rain. Today the cape looks—_alive_, almost: almost like something growing out of her: stretching and twisting, caught almost mid-movement, that undulating all-over pattern of "X"es winding all around her like—like some kind of super high-tech body armor, or—or a weapon: which makes sense, he thinks absently. Creepy, and also—magnetic, un-ignorable: like that line of cut and polished hodag tooth running down the back of Lu's steel-toed boots; _cool_, sort of: Eliot thinks; it should be _cool_, except—his spine, prickling up—except. Except for the part of it. 

Wrapping over her mouth.

Eliot jerks back. Half-stumbling: they should team up, a fast frantic-beating part of him is thinking: her and—and the woman on the right, with her stiff straight back and her armor and her sharp-edged shield: could takes someone's head off, with that thing. Today, she's even wearing some sort of—like. Neck armor, or something. Is neck armor a thing? It seems—surprisingly #goals of her, isn't it, Eliot is thinking: still—startled. Rabbitish. Scattered to bits: looking at—at this stiff closed-off armored-up person, and her implausible bling that would, actually, make sense in a knife fight: more like—like Margo's earrings, or something, than anything he'd ever expect to see on—

He takes another half-step back. Flexes his hands. Skin prickling; as he lets out a breath. It's—nothing, isn't it? It's just. _Decoration_. Isn't it. Like the honeycomb patterns all over the clock's sides; or the cups-and-teardrops on the figures at the front; or the light-dark-light circles forming both the feathers of the bird and the woman standing underneath it: below the moon, dead center, in profile; with one hand stretched up towards the sky.

Quentin drifts up beside him, and all at once Eliot feels—calmer. Steadier. Grounded, stabilized: Q's warm solid body beside him, and Eliot's feet anchored to the earth. Quentin hands Eliot two slices of toast, sandwiched together and then wrapped in a paper towel, and a second cup of coffee in a travel mug: Christ, Eliot's nuts about him. "Okay?" Quentin asks, looking up; and Eliot makes a sort of incoherent _mhaahm_ noise, nodding: it's the best he can do, honestly, with his mouth full of coffee.

"I thought—for a second I thought I heard it gearing up to chime," Quentin says, quiet. "But it's only just now—"

—as whirr. Grind. Click: as the top window jerks open again, and Quentin's voice jerks to a stop: the top window's shutters thunking apart against the clock's wooden face to reveal a star-dusted patch of inky-blue night sky: serene, lovely; before entire _herds_ of grey-black clouds lumber into frame in front of it, and promptly begin to shit snow. At which point: the honky-tonk piano tinkles to life again, because of course it does—

—only this morning, it's playing "Poker Face."

"...Okay," Eliot says, after a couple bars. "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess—_that_ one, my mom's going to recognize." 

"At least the volume adjustment is holding?" Quentin offers.

"Can you fix it?" Eliot asks; and Quentin tilts his head, then leans in and whacks the clock, once, hard, on the right side. The devil's own invisible keyboardist pauses, briefly; and then starts in on "I Wanna Be Loved By You," instead.

"_What_." Quentin claws at his face. "That is _not better_," he hisses at it; but Eliot rests a palm down low on Quentin's back.

"It is, actually," Eliot says. Leans down, to kiss his temple. "That's a really old song," he murmurs, "so I think—it can get away with that one, probably"; to which the clock makes a sort of farty bleating noise, and then a _click-grind-whirr!_; and then snaps the top shutters closed again.

Falling silent.

Eliot and Quentin both stand there, for a second, and then Eliot realizes—

"Fuck! It's seven": handing Quentin his travel mug and his toast, so he can finish buttoning his vest. 

"Well, yes, that's. Sort of the point": Quentin says, "of a clock"; and Eliot grabs his toast and coffee back, kisses him, then realizes— "Shit, actually, can you—" 

"Yeah," Quentin says, nodding, "Go on—" 

So Eliot kisses him again, then darts back into their room—his room, whatever—for his phone, and then scrambling for—for a pair of socks in the dresser in the closet, and then to the door where Quentin's standing: still in jammies, holding Eliot's breakfast: leaning against the wall while Eliot frantically yanks on his boots and his coat and his satchel and a scarf and then takes back his toast and his coffee, awkward, nearly juggling, and then—

—he stops.

Takes a breath; and lets it out; and then. Leans down. 

To nose, gentle, against Quentin's warm face.

Quentin's smiling again, when Eliot kisses him. His blurred-close face flushing, very predictably, a soft, delicate pink.

"Thank you," Eliot murmurs, against him, "for making me breakfast."

Quentin hums. Sliding an arm up around Eliot's shoulders: "I think maybe I like being your kept boy," Quentin whispers; to which Eliot. Kisses him.

Except—

"I mean." Eliot shifts his weight, a little. "I didn't actually—_mean_ it," he admits, "unless—the spankings I can definitely do, but—"

"Oh my God, go to work," Quentin says, laughing; and then pushes up to kiss him: both hands on his lapels. 

"I really didn't," Eliot insists. "Except—"

"Except that you won't say no," Quentin guesses, "if you come home and I'm naked except for a collar and a frilly apron?"

"You know me so well," Eliot sighs; and Quentin nuzzles their faces together. Mouths. Foreheads—

"Yeah," Quentin whispers, thumbing at Eliot's bottom lip. "Sometimes."

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Amahle's in before him, studiously bent over her stack of file folders. She's even left a tall red-eye on the right side of his desk. Eliot—looks at her; then checks the coffee, then checks his desk; then checks his chair, then checks his notebook; and then—finally, cautiously, sits down.

A burst of gold-and-silver glitter and rainbow confetti explodes around him, showering his—his notebook his chair his desk his coffee, his fucking everything: as across from him, it slides, very gently, off the Sumerian shield spell Amahle's set up over her work surface. "Cute," he says, nodding, as he brushes glitter off his vest. His sleeves. His—fuck, it probably did go in his coffee, didn't it; but she's just grinning at him, which makes it—honestly a little hard to be actually mad. "Very cute," he repeats. "That's just—you know I'm going to be washing this out of my cuffs for like a week, right?"

"You better be planning to clean that up, Robinson!" calls Georgie, her voice drifting out of her office.

"That's homophobia, Georgie!" Amahle calls back, rolling her chair to the side; and Eliot turns to look over his shoulder just in time to catch Georgie flipping her off with both hands, before going back to talking to her rubber duckie.

Amahle does help him clean it up, though—"Come on," she scoffs, crouched down with him to spell it off the floorboards, "there's pranks and then there's just _being a dick_"—and they're done before Cody gets in, too, which probably saves them some irritatingly-just-shy-of-actionable commentary.

So—Wednesday, Eliot thinks: feeling—sunnier, for some reason. It's—probably just the glitter, but. Maybe Wednesday will be okay.

He finishes his sketches for the facings—only one set, but he has a lot of partials that he could adapt into a second, if Lu approves the direction he's going—while Lu is in her regular Wednesday morning meeting with Raj and Georgie; so he has a little time to look over his to-do list, which is less terror-inducing than sometimes: double-check his earlier work on the roof (orange file folder) to make sure he doesn't have to adjust anywhere for Georgie as lead caster, now that he's cleaned up from the shear anchors; and then he still has a bunch of work to do on the study carrels (brown file folder), because the Library is incredibly backwards about accommodations for non-hominid and size-diverse corporeations, so they'd come to Hogar back in September with a list of requirements for the interior spaces that were all totally noncompliant with Fillorian accessibility laws, and Lu and Raj and Georgie have all been working on what to propose to counter them at the next client meeting. But other than working out how to efficiently arrange quarter-size carrels for researcher comfort and privacy without encouraging a lot of bibliophile fucking (...oh please, it's not like everyone else at Brakebills _didn't_) amongst the Fillorian branch's gnomish patrons, so he can finish this strategy document for Raj, Eliot doesn't actually have much he _can_ do. Like, Raj—who is one of those terrifying polymaths who has a Brakebills undergrad degree (meteoromancy) and a normal muggle doctorate (materials science) and then wrote two novels in the almost-decade he spent working for NASA before deciding that he was getting tired of letting UCLA down gently, so _okayyy_, _fine_, he guessed he _would_ come back and do that doctorate on living textiles, during which, in his spare time, he'd built a sustainably-sourced zero-carbon yacht which he'd finally wind up sailing with his wife to Italy for her last pre-maternity leave opera performance—is so fucking relaxed about everything that it can sometimes push some kind of compensatory anxiety button in Eliot, but the study carrels just don't feel high enough stakes. Maybe a gnome does get his rocks off in Pre-Implementation Theoretical Physics, who cares? Mostly what Eliot is worried about is his morning check-in, tomorrow; but he's already got all his notes prepped, except for wherever he gets to on the carrels: so maybe—maybe he can leave a little early tonight, even. Help Quentin with the clock, a little; or just—_sit_ with him, just—_relax_, and be _with_ him; maybe—maybe Rachel will finally have—actually fucked off to do tequila shots with her friend, or whatever, somewhere where she won't fucking _bother_ them; and maybe. Maybe they could just. Lie down, just for a little while, just—just to fucking _cuddle_, God, that sounds fantastic, he wouldn't even need to take very many of Quentin's clothes off—

—and Eliot jumps, as Lu drops a fat blue file folder on his desk.

"How far have you gotten with the carrels?" she says: and his shoulders hunch.

"Uh—I've got—" fumbling with his notes— "I'm almost done," he says: aiming for steady, and. Missing, probably. He takes a breath. "I just have—"

"Can you finish by lunch?" she asks.

Her voice sounds—hard. A little too loud. It always makes him— "Uh—" Eliot says, intelligently; and then—winces: thinking that—she's not totally happy with what he did for the south facing, is she—a little too Fillorian, probably, and the western one is probably a little too Library— "A draft?" he asks, uncertain; cringing, a little; but she just nods: brisk, no uncertainty.

"A draft is fine," she says, tucking her curls back. "Raj will probably have suggestions anyway. Get him your draft before you go to lunch. This afternoon, I'm going to need you to work through our partials for the third-floor multipurpose space and see if you can cobble together something I can show Zelda—our meeting's on Friday, so I need it by tomorrow": and Eliot feels the bottom of his ribcage plummet. 

"Tomorrow?" he asks. "Like—"

"Yes, like tomorrow. This is one of those unfortunate moments when we're _all_ going to be working late. I'm sorry, I do try to keep them as infrequent as possible." She taps the top of the file folder. "Look—this doesn't have to be perfect, either, but I need a high-level plan, and you've done good work on the research areas, so I know you can do it." 

"Oh": stomach fluttering. Focus. "I—uh, about that. I still haven't figured out a way around the, uh, potential space misuse problem," he admits: gnomish fucking.

"Yes, but those plans are still a draft, too," she says. "That's fine. Are they legally compliant? For Fillory, I mean." He nods. "Well, that's all we need, at this stage," she says: nodding, decisive. "We'll bring up the potential—" she meets his eyes; "—space misuse problem," he offers; "—the potential space misuse problem," she says, "that's good, I like that, I don't feel like I'm about to trip into an HR violation, saying 'potential space misuse problem'—so we'll bring it up when we talk to the Library, and—do you have any possible solutions?"

"I have a few?" Eliot frowns. "I haven't totally thought any of them through, though."

"That's okay," she says; and then pulls her phone out—

—to check, he realizes, the time.

"A set of possible solutions we're asking for their input on is way better than nothing to show them," she's saying: and—maybe she isn't angry, he's thinking. With—with his heart— "Can you Slack them to me?" she asks; fast, still, because—because maybe she's just. In a hurry. "Or are they—"

"Uh, no, they're—" He turns and grabs his notebook, thumbing to the right Post-It: all his notes have about seven thousand sigils and half-calculations on them, but she's used to getting this sort of look inside the garbage-fire he calls a brain.

"Honestly, you'd think _someone_ in Silicon Valley would invent something with even a quarter of the usefulness of a ream of paper and an all-analog photocopier," she sighs, as she scans it over.

"_Would_ you, though?" he ventures: tentative; but she just snorts, not looking up from his notebook. Her eyes jump, he is noticing, when she reads. Like Quentin's.

After a minute, she nods. "Yeah, this is good. Go make me two copies, and then finish up the facings as quick as you can, and make sure you switch over to the third-floor multipurpose space by lunch—everything we got in terms of requirements is at the top of the blue folder."

He nods, and flips it open: yep, right on top, flowcharts, itemized lists: God bless bureaucracy, or whatever. "Okay," he says, standing. "Uh—for the research areas, do you need anything other than—"

"Actually," she says, tilting her head, "can you copy everything you did on the research areas, not just the carrels? Raj gave me his summary and collation, but I'd like to review what you've been working on, anyway—might as well do it all at once."

He nods. His chest loosening. "And, uh—for the multipurpose room..."

"Review the requirements, look over what we've got to hand, then do what you can to sketch it out top-down," she says. "Get as far as you can, as fast as you can—do you have your headphones?" He holds them up, and she nods. "Skip the details for now," she says. "Just mark potential pitfalls when you see them. Even sixty percent of a plan would be better than what we've got now, and our meeting's Friday afternoon."

"I—okay," he says; and she hands him his notebook back.

"You're doing very good work," she says, in that—firm, terrifyingly serious way of hers; and he swallows.

"Thank you," he says, very awkwardly; and she nods.

"Don't rest on it," she says, and heads back towards her office—

—where Cody is manspreading, shoulders hunched and sullen, in the chair facing her desk.

Fuck, Eliot thinks.

He looks back at Amahle, who is frowning at her laptop: she's been listening to Lizzo all morning—he can hear it leaking around the edges of her headphones—so he's not about to interrupt her. Instead, he stands up, tugging his waistcoat down; and takes his notebook and the blue file folder over to the office's ancient behemoth of a photocopier. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket: Quentin. _do you have todd's cell number? or email? like—personal email?_: Eliot can feel his eyebrows scrunching together. That's Todd twice in two days, which is—

_Should I be jealous?_ he asks: he can get away with it, he thinks, since even _Quentin_ knows he's not jealous of _Todd_.

_p sure todd's full up on unrequited lust rn_, Quentin says, which seems way more self-aware than he is, usually. _No, beakbills question_; and then: _jfc. *brakebills*._

_Yeah, because I was confused about that_, Eliot says, and then flips through his contacts: fine, Todd Moretti, share, whatever. _Gonna catch me up?_ Eliot asks; just as Raj comes in.

"Eliot, are you concentrating?"

"No, just making some copies and texting unprofessionally," Eliot says; and Raj laughs. "I'm almost done with the study carrels," Eliot says; then admits, "Space misuse problem's still a headache, though. But other than that—"

"No, no, I know—unrelated topic. I actually wanted to ask you about your honeycombs," Raj says; and then pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Eliot can feel his eyebrows lifting up. "Um—like, during the skills assessment?"

"No, like you're the office expert and I'm a little bit unclear on how you do the cross-discipline anchors when you're setting up for remote co-casting." Raj rubs a hand through his hair. "Can you show me? Maryam emailed to ask if I could stabilize some climate control work with her—she doesn't have a meteoromancer locally and I don't want to have to fly to Taipei."

"Well, right now, you _couldn't_ fly to Taipei," Eliot notes, and then pauses. "Unless... you _are_ a meteoromancer, so—" but Raj rolls his eyes; and Eliot laughs, because—yeah. Why Meteoromancy Can't Fix Climate Change is like... first term, Week 2, or something. "Anyway—sure, I can show you the anchors." Eliot waves a hand. "They're not actually complicated, just hard to follow from the 2D projection. But—fair warning, it's not going to buy you that much, at this distance—"

But Raj is already nodding. "Because fast-draw increase is exponential with distance, I know," he says. 

"Do we even have those rations?" There's no way they have those rations.

"Ah—we do not," Raj confirms, "_buuut_ you can make the fast-draw increase linear if you feed the honeycomb through a trans-planar directed-channel spool. _Such as_": he plunks a little blob of copper and fabric down on the edge of the copier. "This one," Raj says: sounding very pleased. "Which I have reserved for the next four hours, on loan from the Library."

Eliot blinks at it. It looks like an RC helicopter had a torrid affair with a Beanie Baby. "I haven't ever used a directed-channel spool," Eliot admits; and Raj grins at him. 

"Great!" Raj says. "Then we can both learn something new. Come find me after you're done getting those copies to Lu."

Eliot nods, and Raj heads back to his office, so Eliot goes back to making copies. He's almost done, by the time Quentin finally replies, _tonight?_: which—yeah, Eliot doesn't really have time to talk about Todd right now anyway, honestly. Which is. A detail that's not worth sharing, so he just texts Quentin a thumbs-up and then goes to find Raj, walks him through the cross-discipline anchors—the sigils _are_ super weird, and probably the diagrams in his thesis could've been clearer, too—and then he and Amahle both watch while Georgie narrates how Raj is using the spool, Raj's eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. Then everyone has to go back to work.

Annoyingly: the blue file folder hasn't taken care of itself. The interior spellwork for a third-floor multipurpose space is exactly the kind of boring, necessary task that everyone expects to be doing in their first apprenticeship year; but it's still kind of—_exhausting_, just flipping it open and thinking: _oh, _this_ again_. And it _was_ Cody's assignment, before Lu gave it to him: that much is obvious. Eliot feels a little bit weird about how irritated it makes him, that apparently Cody was fucking up _again_: like it's not bad enough that white boys expect everyone else to clean up after them everywhere _else_: they have to do it while working for _Lu Ximénez_, too?

"He's making us fucking _look bad_," Eliot sighs at Amahle, over sandwiches. 

"Yeah, I hate to tell you this," she says, "but on that one, you've got _way_ bigger problems than Cody Meakin," very dry; and he sighs.

"I know." He rubs at his face; then rests his cheek against his knuckles. "Thanks for listening to me whine, anyway."

"No, no, I like this," she says, leaning back. "I like that his incompetence is _your_ problem, now, instead of mine. What did he do this time?"

"I don't even fucking _know_," Eliot admits. "He was supposed to be doing layout for the multipurpose space on three, but I have nine pages of notes about the silencing spells on the baseboards and fuck all about any of the, like, fifty other requirements, and he did half the framing for those silencing spells wrong, anyway." He scrapes his hair back. "Why doesn't Lu just _fire_ him?"

"Our contracts are two-sided, remember?" Amahle says, "three years of a commitment for three years of a chance, and it's only his second year"; and Eliot sighs.

"I know, I know—I did read mine. Or, well." He waves a hand; and she nods; so he shakes his head. "I just—there's a point, isn't there? Where someone's just—so much of a fuckup that it doesn't make _sense_ to give them time to do it better?" He sighs. "I don't know. Maybe that's fascist of me. But—didn't you say this happened on the Riaz University project, too?"

"Oh, no, that one was _way_ worse," she says, leaning back in her seat. Watching him. "That's why we don't share a desk anymore. He kept _moving his assignments_ into my inbox, like I'd just let _that_ one ride, and Lu wouldn't remember who she'd assigned things to. He was super mainsplainy to Georgie, too—though, that was kind of fun, actually, because Georgie used to just—_demolish_ him in meetings, before—I don't know, Lu talked to her about it, I think. Morale or something." Amahle tips the rest of her coffee back. "I guess it's a good thing that Georgie doesn't, like, unhinge her jaw and publicly devour juniors for forgetting why you can't just randomly substitute gemstones in structural workings," she says, not sounding convinced that that's a good thing really at all, "but when _Cody_ was the one getting devoured, I did kind of enjoy the show."

"Jesus," Eliot sighs; and then pushes up, holding out a hand. "Do you want more coffee?"; so she passes over her cup.

_this guy tweets his weather puns on a schedule_, Margo texts him, while he's smoking. _on. a. schedule._

Eliot rubs at his forehead. _Still, Bambi?_ he asks; and then: _Would it bother you if all the planes weren't grounded?_; and then, a couple of drags later, he adds, _Also that sort of sounds like something Quentin would do._

_that's not a recommending factor for most people, you know_

He huffs. _And I never understand why._

A longish pause; and then she says, _yeah, but honey, you're an idiot about him and also he sucks your dick, so it's harder for you to notice all the times when he's being a massive cumwad_.

Eliot sighs, finishing his cigarette. Thinking—thinking—

His phone buzzes again, in his fist: _want to call?_ Margo asks.

_Cant_, he admits. He's about ten feet away from their building. _Work_.

_fuck the man_, she agrees; then adds, _don't worry, I still love your boyfriend or whatever. I mean, i guess_: as a knot he hadn't totally noticed forming comes unsnarled inside his chest.

Back at his desk, he slogs his way through the rest of the file and feels—itchy. Irritated. Fillory still uses wood combustion fires for all of their heating and cooking—not, he has learned, in any way due to technological backwardness or a national commitment to fairy tale whimsy, or something; but instead actual government policy built up and calcified following an agreement with the Woodcutters' Guild during a centuries-ago war with militant dryads, because fairy tale vibes come and go, but pork-backed political inertia is forever—but Cody, apparently, didn't get the memo. Or—or he got it, but he didn't read it, which is probably a lot more likely; so Eliot not only has to figure out how to open up the north wall to the main chimney, but then also has to spend most of the _rest_ of his afternoon trying to find out if they have any air circulation spells that will be efficient enough to heat a large, reconfigurable space on the third floor of a six-story building without baking the guest speakers whenever they partition the room for seminar presentations; or if they'll need a second fireplace to the south. It's. Annoying. He keeps thinking about that flash of an image, when the second window of the clock had opened in the morning. Probably—it's just because it had looked like a fire. Like a _hearth_. It's more—association, _suggestion_, he knows, than it is anything real; he just—right now he doesn't feel like he has that much that's real to cling to. Margo's stopped sending him updates on her Twitter war with the meteorologist, even; he finally caves around three-thirty and texts to ask, and she says, _at this point it'll be good luck if I get a flight before new years_: not like her, zero irony. Quentin's gone weirdly quiet, too: cagey about what he's working on; which means Eliot's probably going to come home to either a fully working clock, no Rachel, and Quentin having managed to figure out how to set suspension rigging up in Eliot's apartment without losing them the security deposit; or a heap of smoking rubble where the building used to be. Eliot's been working on getting himself used to the idea of the smoking rubble, he thinks, as long as Quentin makes it out okay, and if—if the bookshelves could be spared, maybe—and—and the box in his dresser, with—with their presents; and then Quentin texts, finally, to say, _I didn't notice how much the moons and candle-flames iridesce, until today_: and Eliot can feel his eyebrows scrunch together.

_Candle-flames?_ he asks. Because—

Quentin takes a while—long enough that Eliot's started actually sketching again, a little antsily; but he stops when his phone buzzes with a shaky little video clip: ten seconds, maybe, of the light catching on the two figures at the front of the clock, blurring the bowls and teardrops together, in smears of rainbowish light, while Quentin hums tunelessly—Rihanna—just out of sight. Eliot presses against the headache starting just above his right eye; and then stands up. Stretches his arms up overhead, wondering if he should offer Amahle a coffee, but Amahle is buried in a book that tri-folds and covers most of her desk surface, and she doesn't even look up when he stands. Eliot checks his phone: a quarter past four, stomach sinking. So—too late for coffee, anyway. That's fine. He can skip it. He can just.

Call Quentin from the stairwell, instead.

"Are you okay?" Quentin asks; while Eliot's still sliding down to sit on the top step. Feeling—

"Yeah." Eliot sighs. Rests his forehead against the railing. "I just—I miss you," he says, feeling—stupid, _blunted_ by it: how _impossible_, to not miss him: Quentin with him and _not_ with him, just out of reach.

Quentin makes a noise. "I miss you too," he says, voice low, rough with earnestness; and Eliot closes his eyes.

He can't, actually, hear Quentin breathe.

"Q," Eliot asks; and Quentin hums a question. "Is my mom there?"

"No-o," Quentin says, slow. "Why?"; and Eliot—pointlessly—shakes his head.

"Nothing. No reason." He swallows, and blinks up at the landing to 7. "I think I'm getting spoiled," he admits. "Being able to talk to you whenever I want"; and then sighs.

Quentin hums, again. "I hate talking on the phone," he says.

"I know." Eliot rubs at the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry."

"No, I mean—" Eliot can hear Quentin moving around, something clattering: pins, or screws, or something. "It's fine. I actually kind of wanted to call you, but I was pretty sure you'd've thought someone died, if I did, so—I've been working on the second window," Quentin explains. "Which—is a _total_ mess, like, it took me something like fifteen minutes to work out that since the _top_ window opens hourly, the _middle_ one must be every six hours, and judging by the way they interlock, it should open at the sixes—like, six and noon and six and midnight—but the gears are _completely_ stuck—" half-growled, the way Quentin always gets when something has the audacity to _not do the thing it's supposed to do_— "and it took me the rest of the fucking morning to work out that it _wasn't_ a problem with the gears."

Eliot nods. "Spells?"

"Yep," Quentin says, popping the 'P'. "They're locked up so badly I had to do like—do you remember Sunderland's little frozen-spellwork-diagnostic dance?"

"Mhm."

"Well—_yeah_," Quentin says; and Eliot grins at nothing; "So—I did that, and no I _didn't_ film it, you've got enough blackmail material on me already, thanks, and then I ate some soup, and then I took a break with the letters and stuff, but now—well, I'm waiting for—never mind, it doesn't matter, but. How would you set up a wayfinding spell with variable capture?"

"I—I have no idea." Eliot rubs at the back of his neck. It's still tense, but—better. By a lot. Predictably soothed, by this particular foray into Quentin-typical conversational pinball. "Why would you even want to?"

"I don't know, you only want hot people to be able to find your party?" There's another noise in the background that Eliot can't place, at first, and then he realizes: running water. The sink. "How would you do it, though?" Quentin asks.

"Um, I'm not sure." Eliot folds his arm across his chest, thinking. "What've I got available in terms of rations?"

"Assume... uh, actually, I don't know." Some unidentifiable clunking. "I have no idea what the ration laws were, a hundred years ago, so—just for the sake of argument, assume he could bank whatever he needed, at least on the fast-draw side."

"So then the extended-draw limits it," Eliot reminds him. "And—if we're not worrying about rations, extended-draw is caster dependent."

"I know," Quentin says, glum. 

Eliot nods. "Any idea where he fell?"

"Um—not really." Quentin pauses, then says, "Somewhere between Julia and Kady, maybe? Or—maybe the easier approach is to just assume it was a cooperative casting, say—Julia _and_ Kady."

Eliot snorts. "Before or after all the girlfriend-swapping?" he asks. "Do I need to add in an explosion barrier?"

"I mean, they're fine, now," Quentin says. "Or—at Julia's birthday it seemed like they were, at any rate. And technically, I think that was more of a girlfriend rotation. So—assume no, on the explosion barrier." 

"Hmm." Eliot rubs at the back of his head. Eyes closed, considering the problem. "Interesting," he says, after a second. "I'm. Not sure."

"That sounded like a 'but', in there," Quentin says, after a second. "What're you thinking?"

"I think," Eliot says, very slowly, "that there's a way to reverse the directionality on—oh, fuck, I don't remember what it's called: that first-year object sorting spell, from PA. The variation's in—must be the Brandywine Grimoire?" Eliot had done okay with the Brandywine, actually. Something about the way they laid out their diagrams. "I don't have a copy, though," he admits. "But Margo probably would remember."

"Sorting spell?"

"Yeah." Eliot rolls his shoulders. "For filtering objects to different locations."

"Are you talking about that lab where we had to put all the peas in one jar and the pearls in another?" Quentin asks; and then sighs. "I _hated_ that lab."

"Yeah, but—you probably hated it because it's not intrinsically cooperative," Eliot says. "So making first-years cast it like it is and then grade them on how well they bend themselves backwards to do it is kind of a dirty trick." 

The part Eliot's not saying: that's a week-five lab. Back before Alice dropped out, probably when she and Quentin were still trying to make themselves work together, for some reason: that long arctic period in which Alice was relentlessly bitchy to him to prove she hadn't caught feelings; and Quentin had assumed he had to take it. Eliot wouldn't mention that part, though; and at the other end of the line, Quentin just—hums. 

More noises. The coffee maker, this time, Eliot thinks. Even though—

"It's after four," he says.

"Decaf," Quentin says; and Eliot nods.

Asks, "Have you eaten lunch?

"Yeah," Quentin says. "I told you. I had soup."

Soup. Eliot shifts, a little, trying to figure out if there's a non-oppressively-parental way to ask whether or not it had a vegetable in it, or whether it came out of a can—

"Oh—uh, wait," Quentin says, "is this—was that a sex thing? Oh. Uh. Still—yes, but, um—"

Eliot pauses. "...Are you trying to think of something sexier than soup?"

It's—just a guess, mostly, but Quentin lapses into a tellingly guilty sort of a silence.

"A banana?" he hazards, after a second; and Eliot—starts laughing. Helpless. "_I_ don't know," Quentin sighs, "I'm terrible at this shit, you know that."

"You're perfect." Eliot kicks his feet out, trying not to think about what sitting on the floor is doing to his trousers. "Besides—what kind of soup?"

"Lentil?" Quentin sounds a little uncertain, but Eliot nods.

"Lentil soup is _very_ sexy," he assures him. "Hot." Flexing his ankles. "Nutritionally well-balanced."

"And hot and well-balanced is what does it for you, huh," Quentin says, wry; and Eliot—shifts.

"I mean, well-balanced isn't a hard requirement," Eliot tells him; and Quentin says, "Oh. _Phew_."

Eliot swallows. Feeling—warm. Tense, in that same—stretched, expectant way: where he knows that all he has to do is reach out; and find Quentin's hand. 

"Why do you think they're candle-flames?" Eliot asks, low; and Quentin— 

—hesitates.

"Why," he asks. "What do you—"

A surge of annoyance. "Q," Eliot says. Thick; and then. He takes a breath. Rubs his face; and says, "Please."

On the other side of the city, Quentin lets out a slow, noisy breath.

After a second, Quentin says, "Because. Because they glow, you know? Just like—they're always. _Moving_, and—and _changing_, making—they make the pattern more interesting, wherever they turn up. It's like. A magical spotlight, or. Or whatever, they make—whatever they're next to always. Looks _better_, with them, you know?": and Eliot bows his head. 

"I mean," Quentin says, after a pause, "they're you, aren't they?"

Eliot swallows. "Generous," he says, quiet.

"I mean." Quentin hesitates. "Yeah?"; and Eliot looks back up at the landing above him.

Metal. Shadow. White—_blurring_—

"Anyway," Quentin says. "It's not like—"

"Cups," Eliot says; and Quentin says, "—you can really be—sure—uh—"; and then, after a long, taut moment, "...Cups?"

"Yeah," Eliot says. "Cups. Not moons"; and scrubs at his face. "Like—cups for water, or, or tea, or—to _hold_ things," Eliot—tries to explain; feeling—desperate, for some reason: _needful_, in an odd, unstable way: he can't—he can't quite— "Or bowls," he tries. "To. To feed people. To—to _nourish_ them. You know?"

Quentin is silent, for a long, long moment, before he says, "I can't cook."

"You don't need to," Eliot says.

Throat sore.

Quentin doesn't say anything, for a long, long time. Then he says, "Candles. A—against the darkness"; and Eliot wipes at his face: smudges of plum-purple. Almost-black.

"You're fucking up my eyeliner," he says, scratchy; and then— "I was starving, Quentin"; and Quentin laughs; and then sighs; and then whispers, "Yeah. I love you, too"; while Eliot presses his phone tighter and tighter to his cheek.

Nods.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/flame-bowl_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/flame-bowl_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/flame-bowl_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/flame-bowl_gifset)

[I was starving, Quentin.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/flame-bowl_gifset)

"I think I'm going to have to work late tonight," he admits, after a minute; then scrubs a hand through his hair. "Fuck. I fucking _hate_ this, Q"; and Quentin makes a noise.

"You could come home for a quickie?" he suggests; and Eliot laughs: tearing, ragged.

"If only I had that kind of faith in the CTA," he says; and Quentin snickers: warm and familiar. _Normal_, almost, in a way that—Eliot takes a breath. 

"When you come back in May," he says, feeling like—diving off the edge of a building, trying to trust enough that—that something will catch him—buoy him up—; and Quentin just—hums. Expectant. A question; but not—he's never uncertain, is he, about the ones that Eliot is so afraid to ask. So Eliot tells him, "I'm going to take two whole weeks off": his pulse picking up. "One to help you—one for New York, and one for here. I'll book it—as soon as I get through this assignment, when Lu's feeling—especially charitable towards me—"

"_Can_ you take that much time?" Quentin asks, slowly. "Because—I mean, if you _can_, we could drive it": and Eliot presses his forehead to the railing: sweat springing up under his clothes. "Well, _you_ could drive it," Quentin says: rueful, a little bit, because Quentin's relationship with his total lack of a driver's license is never not complicated: "but—there's my dad's car, and—uh—it'll be nice, in May": which is code, Eliot is guessing, for Quentin being not-at-all-secretly into some al fresco fucking across state lines. 

"That sounds." Eliot swallows. "Nice," he manages, finally. His heart is still pounding. He feels like he's run a marathon. "I mean—that sounds amazing, baby. I—we should definitely do that."

A door bangs, somewhere up the stairwell; and Eliot jumps. "Fuck": scrambling up to his feet. But—it's not. _Their_ door, is it: a couple flights up, he realizes, just as a weedy-looking middle-aged scientist type in huge glasses scampers down the stairs past him: hunched into the collar of his coat, and not looking at Eliot.

At all.

"You okay?" Quentin asks, low.

Eliot rubs at his face. "Better, now," he admits; a little wobbly; and Quentin makes another one of those low, longing sounds. Eliot squeezes his phone so hard he thinks he's in danger of snapping the case.

"I should probably go back to work," he says, rough; and then swallows. "Love you."

"Yeah," Quentin says, warm and close. "I know."

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

That night, when Eliot staggers in out of the howling gale, he's not sure—_what_ he expects to find, but—it's probably not, like. His mom and Quentin, sitting on the folded-up pullout, eating leftover pizza and watching something on Quentin's laptop, which they've got balanced on the ottoman, pulled back in front of the sofa, and away from the illusion wall.

Eliot pauses. Standing—just at the mouth of the hallway, at the corner of the illusion: a thud. He jumps, looking down, as Quentin and Rachel look up from the screen: the thunk was. Eliot's satchel. Sliding—off the arm of his coat. He stares down at it, on the floor.

"Ff—jeez, El": Quentin scrambles over, to rest—his hands are so warm. 

"You smell like pizza," Eliot tells him, blinking, while Quentin cups his cheek.

"You're fucking freezing," Quentin says, "and your clothes are—come on, you need to get out of that."

"It's practically coming down horizontally," Eliot explains, as Quentin bends to pick up his satchel. Herds Eliot back into the hall, between the sides of his closet: "And—the trains were all delayed, so—I just wanted to get home, so I took the bus—"

"So you had to wait outside," Quentin murmurs, nodding: setting Eliot's satchel aside so he can unbutton Eliot's coat. Hang it up: gentle, careful. Brushing the lapels straight, and pushing everything else aside, so that the air around it can circulate: God, Eliot loves him so much. When Quentin turns back, catching Eliot's eyes, he looks—puzzled, a little bit, at first; but then his expression softens. Reaching up for Eliot's scarf. "You couldn't cast?" Quentin asks, dropping his voice.

"There were about a thousand muggles with exactly the same idea," Eliot says, to match; and Quentin nods. Finishes unwinding the scarf, and then pushes up onto his toes for a kiss. 

"Shower, maybe?" Quentin asks; but Eliot shakes his head. Too tired. "Yeah," Quentin sighs, "I know that feel"; and then turns to Eliot's dresser—middle drawer, bottom: fussing—and then back again, to run a hand through Eliot's damp hair. "Okay, come on," Quentin says. "I'm going to go heat you up some dinner—wet stuff off, PJs on. Hop to," and then pats him on his ass, so Eliot. Hops to: boots, first. Then—shirt off. Pants off. His underwear and his soaked-through socks: shivering as he scrubs a hand towel over the icy damp clinging all over his skin, and then picks up the top of the pajamas Quentin had laid out for him: blue silk, white piping. A classic, he thinks, pulling it on, and then—his skin prickles, a little, as the little warming charm Quentin'd set on them starts to sink into his skin. Eliot takes a breath, slow: cloves and sweet sun-ripe plums. Burning juniper. Setting his hand on the fabric: and then—then he realizes that he's standing in his closet hallway in nothing but an opened PJ shirt and his _mom_ is sitting, like, _twelve feet away_, just the other side of the bedroom nook, and all they'd need for a _really_ awkward moment would be for her to realize that she needs to pee, or something, and come around the hall towards the bathroom—so Eliot picks up the bottoms, and pulls them on. Quentin'd charmed them, too. Sneaky, Eliot thinks: he hadn't even noticed him doing it. Missed a calling, probably: his alternate-universe life as like—a pickpocket, or a stage magician, or something; except, Eliot thinks. Except—maybe it makes him selfish, but he wouldn't have Quentin be anything else at all. Under the pajamas, Quentin had set out the sweater Alice gave Eliot last Christmas, which is an incredible downy-soft cashmere and also cut for, like, a fifty-nine-year-old semi-retired accountant, and also a muddy, oaty sort of grey-brown: it's hands-down the least stylish thing Eliot owns, but—it's also really comfortable. And really warm. Quentin had borrowed it a lot, last winter: the hot possessive-victorious thrill that had always given Eliot was probably selfish, too, but—fuck it. Eliot pulls it on. Pressing Quentin's magic, woven into his pajamas, in close to his prickling bare skin.

When he comes back out around the corner into the living room, Rachel looks up; and then lifts up the throw blanket. Eliot—rubs at his face, trying to— "Tea, or cocoa?" Quentin calls; and something—cracks, a little, inside Eliot's throat and ribs and face: the pressure of—of this huge, unnamable—_thing_, welling up—l-leaking—

He scrubs a hand over his face. Still wet: Christ, he hadn't even realized how hard it'd been snowing. "Tea, please," he calls back, "chamomile"; and then clears his throat, and goes over to pull Quentin's discarded side of the blanket up over his lap. He wipes at his face again: God. It's probably. His hair, dripping—all over the fucking place—

"Tissue?" Rachel asks; and Eliot laughs.

"No, no, I was just—I was thinking I probably should've." Breathing in: "Blow-dried my hair," Eliot says; and then sighs.

She pats his knee, through the blanket; and then calls, "Quentin? Where do you keep your extra towels?"

Quentin comes out from the kitchen with a mug and a plate, three slices of pizza: pink-cheeked, looking a little shifty; which means—he probably heated it with magic. Which. What the fuck ever, Eliot doesn't care. "I'm not sure we have any, actually," Quentin is saying, as he passes Eliot the plate: "except—oh, wait." He sets Eliot's tea by the laptop, then darts back into the kitchen, and Eliot would tell him it's a hopeless cause except he's too busy _shoving an entire piece of pizza in his mouth_—ow—definitely magic, still _way_ too hot but fuck, Eliot's _starving_, and Christ, he'd—he'd barely even noticed. Just then Quentin comes back with a bar mop, and perches on the pullout on Eliot's other side to start patting it through Eliot's hair. A little sliver of a warming spell in there, too: not much. About as much as anyone could get away with, probably, sitting like a foot and a half away from someone you can't let see you do magic.

"Thanks," Eliot mumbles, and then picks up his second slice of pizza. 

"Yeah," Quentin says. "God, can't you even, like. Stop for a snack? I feel like I need to, like, have words with Lu or something—"

His eyes are widening: half-panicked, terrified: God, no, Quentin. Should definitely not. Try to have words with—well, anyone, really, but _definitely_ not Lu Ximénez, so—Eliot shakes his head. Shakes his head. Chews. Chews. Chews. "S'not her," Eliot says. Swallows. "I—there are snacks in the kitchenette, like—granola bars and stuff, but I just—I just wanted to finish and come home," he explains, throat sore; and Quentin nods. Sliding an arm around Eliot's shoulders: Eliot hunches towards him, until their foreheads touch. Their noses.

Mouths.

Eliot breathes. Breathes. Breathes—

"I'm still—sort of hungry," he explains, feeling—weird about it; Quentin huffs. Pulling back.

"Eat your other slice of pizza," he says, and then kisses him one again. "I'm not going anywhere."

Eliot nods, and turns back to his plate. "What're you watching?" he asks: looking—up, really, for the first time: moustaches, he thinks; just as Quentin says, unnecessarily, "_Poirot_. But—we can change it, if—"

"No, God." Eliot takes a deep, slow breath. "No, please, by all means, let's. Watch some culturally-regressive murder mysteries"; and on his other side, Rachel laughs.

Quentin nods and reaches over to hit play again, and Eliot eats his pizza: squished in between Rachel and Quentin under his muted-grey fuzzy blanket, Quentin's arm draped around his shoulders, while Quentin's little warming spells thaw him a fraction of a degree at a time. He trades plate for mug, with Quentin's help, when the pizza's gone, and then—then he just. Slides down, a little. Just wanting—that. That, right there: Quentin kissing the crown of his head, mouth warm: Eliot reaches a hand up to his chest to tangle up their fingers, over his own sternum; and then tips his face up, for a kiss. Closes his eyes: tasting black pepper and evergreens. Everywhere around him, everyone wonders which awful unnecessarily-wealthy child murdered their horrible oil tycoon father in the south of France, or whatever; and against his cheek, Quentin's ribs move, slow: up and down, up and down; like the sea.

Rachel's voice. Quentin's. That rough, dry-flat way he always sounds, when he's making a joke: Rachel laughs, and Eliot snuggles in, so Quentin's arm tightens around him; and Eliot turns to tuck his face in against Quentin's throat. Warm enough: drifting through him. At last.

His hands. Colder, all of a sudden: he blinks. Blinks: bright. Saxophone, wavering its way through the ending theme: Quentin's leaning towards his laptop, to set Eliot's half-drunk mug on top of the pizza crumbs on his plate, and flick the laptop shut.

"Did I—I missed it." Eliot scrubs at his face. "Was it—the navy captain?": and Quentin leans back next to him. Brushing Eliot's hair back.

"No naval captains," he says. Soft: and Eliot—blinks.

"But," he says. "The boat."

"Yeah." Quentin's face is so soft, so near so lovely: Eliot kisses him, and Quentin cups his jaw. "You were—pretty asleep, sweetheart," Quentin says, very gently: and Eliot.

Prickles up, all over: the way he always does when Quentin says it, his whole body buzzing-thrumming-wild coming _alive_—

Quentin pulls back. "You're still wearing eyeliner," Quentin says; and then— "sort of," he corrects: rueful. His wide mouth broadening, twisting: soft. "You should go wash your face. And then—bed, c'mon, we gotta give Rachel the pullout back"; and Eliot. Blinks: turning, to look at Rachel; who is standing just in the mouth of the hall in her pajamas, her face damp and dewy with moisturizer, and her long wild hair braided for bed.

"I," Eliot says; and then. Licks his mouth. "Uh. Okay?"

Quentin nods, and stands up. Holds a hand out: Eliot lets Quentin pull him up to his feet. He turns, ready to offer—but Quentin and Rachel are already doing it: pushing the ottoman well out of the way, and then the pillows, and then—reaching, together, to unfold it into her only-just-disheveled borrowed bed—

Eliot goes to wash off his makeup. 

Brush his teeth.

It's—weird. It's just—weird, the whole thing is—_so fucking weird_, he realizes: as though—as soon as he's got as much glitter as he can out of his chest hair and is lying down under their covers in the dark, he wakes up: for real, maybe, for the first time since he walked into the apartment. _Wait_, a small, frantic, heart-pounding part of him is thinking, _did that—actually happen?_: as his brain is booting up again, in the dark; _Did I just actually—eat leftover pizza and snuggle on the sofa, with _my mom_, and _my boyfriend_?_ Because—there is just. _No actual way_, Eliot is reminding Eliot, that that actually happened—except. Except it _did_. It _did_ happen, Eliot is countering—contradicting—just-realizing as though—as though he wasn't even fucking—_there_ for it: it _did_ happen: repeating it over and over, almost—_angrily_, for some reason, as though—as though he can't quite bring himself—to _believe_ it: but it happened, Eliot is insisting. It happened, and it was _nice_.

He huffs: Christ, fuck the naval captain: _that's_ the part that should be made up.

The door opens: a wedge of faint light. Closes again, as Quentin tiptoes over: Eliot shifts, a little. 

"It's okay," Eliot says, quiet. "I'm awake."

Quentin pauses, just at the edge of the bed. "Awake like you were during _Poirot_?" he asks; and then peels off his thermal: a blur of shadow-on-dark: his fair skin only-just visible in the faint, faint golden glow from the streetlights, when a gleam manages to make it all the way to their windows, through the snow.

"Mm. Sorry about that," Eliot says; and then lifts up the duvet for Quentin to crawl on top of him: the _best_ path, honestly, for Q to get over to his side of the bed.

"No—mm—no, it's fine." Quentin kisses him again. "Honestly, I still kind of can't believe you're voluntarily getting up at five-thirty in the morning."

"I mean." Eliot laughs, a little. "'Voluntarily' is—kind of a stretch."

"Mm-hmm," Quentin says; and then flattens his whole body down against Eliot's. Snuggling close.

Kissing him.

He's all minty. Damp, a little, at the edges of his hair. Thumbing at the hinge of Eliot's jaw: "You okay?" Quentin asks. Quiet: and Eliot swallows.

"I—uh." He laughs, a little. "Hey. Kiss me?"

Quentin touches his mouth. His throat: "Oh," Quentin murmurs, just against him, "twist my arm"; as Eliot's ribs—loosen, by micrometers: wrapping his arms around Quentin's warm back in their bed.

They kiss.

And _kiss_—

A few minutes later, Quentin breaks away. Tucking his face down, for an instant, to press a half-laugh against Eliot's collarbone: and Eliot takes a breath. 

Kisses his temple.

"Tap the brakes?" he asks: quiet; and Quentin—whimpers, a little. Nods. Pressing—_God_. Eliot blinks, half-frantic, up at the ceiling, and takes a long slow steadying breath in the dark.

Quentin keeps his face there. Breathing. Breathing: holding his hips—very, very still. Christ, the day after Rachel leaves Eliot's calling into work sick for a _week_, fuck their deadline, he doesn't even fucking _care_—

He takes a breath. Lets it out; as Quentin sighs against him, and then presses a kiss against the underside of Eliot's jaw.

"Jesus, this afternoon was so long ago I feel like I haven't talked to you in a week," Eliot says. Squeezes him, a little, as Quentin props himself up on an elbow: Eliot can see him better, now; his eyes finally getting used to the dark. "Hey, honey," Eliot says. Rubbing a hand up Quentin's bare back: "How was your day?"

Quentin huffs. Ducks down, to give him a kiss; and then props himself up again, to rub a hand over his face. "I don't know, it was fine, I—"

He stops. Sighs.

Eliot likes—this spot, right here. That little—swoop, curving down from the bottom of Quentin's ribcage, alongside the knobs of his spine: Quentin shivers. Scrunches down again. Rubbing their noses together: animal and sweet; while Eliot pets at his back.

"I keep thinking," Quentin says, "about Adam's book": and then—he wriggles, a little, down over onto his side.

Eliot rolls himself up, so they can stay facing. "Yeah?" he asks. Tucking their knees together, and settling his arm over the angle of Quentin's warm side.

"Yeah, like." Quentin shrugs, a little. "Like—I keep thinking about, like. Why he didn't finish it, I mean."

Eliot nods. Petting. Petting: and—waiting, for Quentin, in the dark and the quiet, because sometimes—

After a second, Quentin shifts. Sits up. "Hey—close your eyes, okay?" he says; so Eliot obediently closes his eyes; and then squints one open, very cautiously, once Quentin's switched the lamp on. Quentin folds his legs under the duvet, angled towards him, so Eliot—sits up, too. Quentin isn't looking at him, quite. His throat working, mouth angled in—in that resigned way that Quentin gets, about being unhappy.

Eliot rubs at his knee, quiet, through cotton, and down, and cotton; and after a second, Quentin lifts his hands up and casts—

Eliot raises an eyebrow. "Is that—the audio muffler?"

"It's—I mean, yeah, it's a variation," Quentin says, "but—she'll still be able to hear us, she just won't be able to make—words out—": as Eliot. Can feel. His other eyebrow, lifting up. Quentin's gaze flicks to him, and then away again, and then—back: "What?" he asks; and then: "—oh." His face scrunches up, a little impatient: so—no, okay, Eliot _didn't_ totally misread the situation. If either of them were really comfortable screwing with just a silencing spell between them and his mother and _no real wall_, they—would've done it a while ago, probably. Well—yesterday. About nine more times on Monday, at any rate. "No," Quentin says, "I just—I wanted to talk to you."

"Yeah," Eliot says. Petting Quentin's knee through their sheets.

Quentin takes a long, slow breath; and then—pushes his hair back: the way he used to do, when it was longer, falling all over into his face; that doesn't quite—_work_ now, does it. With it cut so short. "D'you think it's genetic?" Quentin asks; and then.

Flattens his mouth out, tight. Looking up at the ceiling: shaking his head, as he sighs.

"Do I think what's genetic, baby?" Eliot asks, quiet; and Quentin takes another big steadying breath and says, "Magic."

His voice cracks, halfway through; and his mouth—a smile: a real one, but. The kind of drawn-tight bleak smile that comes out of Quentin only when it hurts. Eliot—has a really hard time hating any of Quentin's smiles, but. He doesn't love that one, that's for sure.

"Like—am I a magician because I—inherited it, but—but it's, like, recessive, or something," Quentin says: another serrated flash of smile: "or is it—is it something else."

Eliot swallows. Turns his hand up; and Quentin lets out a breath, and folds his over it. "Your dad?" Eliot asks, quiet; and Quentin. Shakes his head, shakes his head: in that way that he does, when he can't bear to say _yes_. Eliot sighs, interlacing their fingers. "I don't know," Eliot says, quiet. "I mean—I don't think anyone really knows, but—I don't even really feel like I have a theory. Every time this comes up I feel like—people just throw out whatever makes their politics seem morally correct, you know?"

Quentin nods. "Like—Alice," he says, quiet; and Eliot looks down at his knees, because—

"Yeah," he says, after a second, because—it's almost certainly not relevant, in this situation, to point out that Alice probably wouldn't be so fucking militant about opening up magical education to anyone and everyone who wanted to learn if she hadn't, herself, _inherited_ her family of uber-powerful magical nutcases. "I mean, yes, Alice, but also—Q, you're never going to convince me that Mayakovsky's whole suffering-is-the-root-of-all-power trip is because he actually fucking _believes_ it, and not because he gets off on flinging his students out to freeze naked in the snow," Eliot says; and Quentin—winces a little, shoulders hunching; but he nods. 

Eliot squeezes Quentin's hands. 

"I mean—they know traveling's genetic," Eliot offers, after a second; and then tilts his head. "Well—sort of," he corrects. "It's inherited, at any rate." He and Penny had been—_very_ drunk, during that conversation, but Penny'd been very very insistent on exactly four points: 1) Penny hated Quentin; 2) like, a lot; 3) when you took into account the like seventy thousand pages of suramageian circumstances governing travelers, there was a very big fucking gap between _inherited_ and _genetic_; and 4), that (1) would not prevent Penny from straight-up murdering Eliot if he made Quentin cry ("—harder than usual," Penny'd slurred, "b'cause—can hear that shit from—from across campus, y'know": while Eliot had nodded, nodded, nodded).

Squeezing Eliot's hand, Quentin jerks his head. A cousin of a nod, at least: Eliot swallows. Squeezing back.

"I heard back from Todd," Quentin says; which—_really_ feels like a non sequitur, until Quentin adds, "I—it wasn't. They didn't all go to Brakebills. They weren't all—just. _Friends_, who all turned out to be—" 

He stops. Takes a big breath; and then—lets it out.

"It was just Matthew," Quentin says. "Writing to—to Beth, at home in Albany, and, like, Walter was at Columbia, for most of it, while—" He takes his hand back, and scrubs at his scalp. "She wasn't a magician," Quentin says, quiet. "Todd looked up their records. None of them even—they weren't even _tested_, except—except for Matthew."

Eliot hesitates. Trying to—read his expression, or—approximate it: "And that's upsetting," he says, low, and Quentin.

Swallows, loud in the quiet; and then takes Eliot's hand again.

Nodding.

Eliot squeezes. Waiting.

"It just seems—so fucking _lonely_, you know?" Quentin says: all in a rush; and—a slow, cold prickle starts, somewhere low down on Eliot's spine. "Like—imagine if _Margo_ weren't a magician, or like—me _and_ Margo, and like—Penny and Alice too, you know? Like—if all the people you cared about most in the universe weren't—_like_ you, and it was just—just you, at Brakebills, without us."

His voice sounds—so fucking _bleak_, looking over at Eliot with his eyebrows bent in the middle like birds, and his wide hurt dark eyes; and Eliot. Scoots closer to him, up against his side, so he can wrap an arm around him.

Squeeze him close, when Quentin—droops, a little, and then—huddles in close, against Eliot's side.

Eliot kisses his temple. "D'you think—was it bad for Matthew?" he asks. Quiet; and Quentin—sighs. Shoulders slumping: so Eliot leans back, a little. Guiding Quentin down against the pillows.

"I mean—I don't know," Quentin says, "it doesn't—_seem_ like it, his letters are all—cheerful, and stuff, like—the ones I've read, and like—God, I mean. I know, I _know_ I'm projecting, like—he's not really anything like me, you know? He was pretty clearly—super outgoing, he had a million friends, he captained at _welters_, for fuck's sake, he wasn't—hiding in the Cottage reading nook during parties, that's for fucking sure."

Eliot nods. There were probably—a lot of things, that Matthew Coldwater wasn't doing, in the Cottage reading nook. He flexes his toes, under the covers. "Physical kid?" he asks, probably unnecessarily; and Quentin nods against his shoulder.

"Yeah, galvanomancy," Quentin says; and Eliot's eyebrows lift.

"Electricity?" he asks, turning a little. "Isn't that super rare?"; and Quentin shrugs.

"Julia says—cryomancy's a little bit rarer, actually," Quentin says. "So we should be all impressed by Margo, instead."

"I dare you to imply to Margo you're _not_ impressed by her," Eliot says; and Quentin huffs.

"Oh, believe me," Quentin says, "I'm a moron about a lot of things, but I—am definitely too smart to do that."

Eliot kisses his forehead. Squeezing him. Still thinking about—

"Look," he says. Turning, a little. "I'm glad you went to Brakebills. You _and_ Margo—I'm glad you're both magicians. And—yeah, part of that's selfish, because if you hadn't I wouldn't've met you, but—Q, mostly I'm glad because you both love magic, you know? Not because—" He shifts, a little. Stomach tense. "I mean, Matthew already knew Beth, right?" he says. "All the way from—from when they were really little. Beth _and_ Walter, there're—all those photos, of them as kids: Matthew and Walter were like—Beth's favorite models, you know? And—even before Matthew and Beth got married—" Quentin squeezes; as Eliot squeezes back— "he brought them to graduation, didn't he?" Eliot asks; and Quentin nods. "So," Eliot says, "he must've spent rations on those artificial-acclimitization passes Frankie had to use for all his four million muggle friends and relations—: like, Matthew and Beth, it's pretty obvious that they were a very, very long way from, like—oh, childhood friends who stopped talking, or whatever, you know? A _lot_ of those pictures of the three of them, they've got to be from _after_ Brakebills. From—after the war, even, some of them: in a bunch of them, Matthew's going _grey_. So it wasn't like—Matthew went to Brakebills alone, and then—his best friends were, like, erased from his new life, or whatever: he went to Brakebills and then—he came _back_ to them. They kept—being a part of him. For years. _Decades_, even, I think. So—I don't think I would've been—I mean, yeah, I would've missed you," Eliot says. "But—I don't think it would've been—_lonely_, like—really truly lonely, deep down, if—if I'd already known that—"

He stops. Takes a breath.

"If I'd already known that I was with you," Eliot says.

It's all—_true_. Eliot shifts, a little. Tucking Quentin against him, a little bit tighter, and—it's all true, isn't it? Even if—even if, Eliot thinks, there's—that note, somewhere, that just feels—just the tiniest bit out of tune. 

"With us how?" Quentin asks, tipping his face up; and—there, there it is. Eliot kisses him: all the chord settling into its right place.

"I don't know," Eliot admits. Nuzzling, a little; before he pulls back. "I mean—I'm not Matthew, but—they were _friends_, weren't they? They'd been friends for—_ages_, I mean—he _must've_ known how to be with them, even if—if it's not _quite_ the same way," he acknowledges, "that I'm with you": and Quentin huffs. 

Wriggling, to press close against him, while they kiss.

After a minute, Quentin asks, "Do you believe that?" against his jaw; and Eliot swallows.

"Yes, and no," he admits. Sighs, a little; and Quentin's big blinking brown eyes. "I mean—yeah. I think—they pretty clearly found a way to navigate it, and still be—really super close, right? Like—he _married_ her": and Quentin nods, a little. "Yeah," Eliot says; and then. Swallows: petting that little flip of hair back. "But, I do think—Brakebills would've seemed—a lot less magical, for me," he says, quiet. "Without you."

Which—

(—predictably—)

—makes Quentin flush a slow, blossoming sort of magenta: creeping up over his jawline, across the planes of his cheeks: his eyes dark and intent, as he licks over his bottom lip, studying Eliot's face. Which feels—hot, and—and paper-crackly, almost. when Quentin rests a hand on his cheek. 

Kisses him: long, and slow, and sweet.

"Hey," Quentin says. Quiet, pulling—back; and Eliot—swallows. "Are you—okay, El?" 

Looking at him, dark-eyed.

And Eliot—could say. A lot of things. But—

"How long does that spell last?" he asks.

Quentin shrugs. "Couple hours."

"Couple _hours_?" Eliot rubs at his forehead. "I—wow, well, there's—_that_ excuse gone, anyway."

"Yeah," Quentin agrees; and then—shifts, a little. "Want me to turn the lamp out?"

Eliot closes his eyes: in, two, three, four. Out, two, three—

"Yeah," he says, shifting up onto his side. "Please."

So Quentin rolls up, to switch the lamp off; while Eliot. Takes a breath; and then reaches up, to light one of the candles, instead. That little quavering—_heart_ of it, the liquid-amber throb of its life—he lights the one next to it, too. And—another. And another, as Quentin snuggles back down against his side. Resting a hand on Eliot's hip, and then—sliding his fingertips under—his waistband, so he's really resting a hand on Eliot's bare ass, instead. It—probably shouldn't be—like, _reassuring_, exactly; but it is.

Eliot touches the last candle to light, and then slides back down under the covers. Facing Quentin.

"They're pretty," Quentin says, quiet; and Eliot scrubs at his face.

"Residual brainwashing, probably," he admits. From fucking—caroling, or—his chest hurts. "And—" He takes a breath. "And, I mean, like—my mom always used to have candles around, too": and—

—and his ribs loosen, a little, when he says it. For—for some reason. 

"Like—just, for light, or whatever," Eliot explains: apologetic. "Because—because they were beautiful."

"Yeah," Quentin says, squeezing. 

Eliot nods, and presses his face down to kiss Quentin's collarbone, before straightening again. 

Face to face.

"Your mom's candles," Quentin says. Gentle. "When you were little": as Eliot nuzzles him. Quentin's hand, curled up around the back of his neck; and Eliot feels—

—_suspended_, for some reason. As though—

"Yeah," Eliot says; and then— "She used to light them a lot when—"

And then. The strangest thing: 

"—when it was just us," Eliot is saying.

And he is—in two places, inside of himself: the one, saying _when it was just us_ and remembering; and the other, watching it happen: "Like—when it started to get dark really early, in the fall," he is saying, very slowly: and—it's so clear, isn't it? But it had been—packed away: the watching-Eliot looking at the remembering-Eliot as his memory comes unrolled inside himself like a canvas, set aside for safekeeping: of his mother, in one of her huge ugly handmade sweaters, leaning over his shoulder at the table, while he was still trying to struggle his way through long division: leaning over to light candles that—that she'd burn _until_ dinner, the remembering-Eliot is thinking; but that's backwards, isn't it? thinks Eliot, who is watching. That's not what you're supposed to do, with candles. "I was scared of the dark," an Eliot is saying, slowly. "And—and I thought—when I was a kid, I thought—that _she_ was, too, for—for a while": as Quentin curls up his fingers, in the small of Eliot's back.

There it is, he thinks. Right—there. A thing he'd forgotten he remembered, right there vivid-gold and warm and precious: like someone's been rearranging furniture, and this is what he finds behind it. As clear as though he's remembered it all this time—

—which he didn't. 

It's quiet. Just—just them, breathing. 

Huh, Eliot thinks. That's interesting.

"It seems—hard," Quentin says, after a minute; and Eliot looks at him. "Like, it seems like—maybe it's sort of. Hard on you, to. To not—not really be able to talk to her"; and Eliot sighs.

"No, I mean—she's fine, it's not—." He stops. Swallows, and then rolls over onto his back. "It's—it was just—I mean, _tonight_," Eliot says; and then. Laughs, a little. Scrubbing at his face. "This was just—a weird night," he explains, putting a hand over Quentin's, as Quentin splays it out on Eliot's own hairy chest, draping his knee over Eliot's. 

Quiet. Curling close.

His heart. Quentin's. A pulse, echoing one, to the other, to the other: Quentin kisses the crest of Eliot's shoulder, and says nothing.

"Like—I mean." Eliot swallows, in the silence. "We cuddle, don't we?"

"Um." Quentin laughs, a little. "Yes?"

"Yeah, like—all the time, right?" Eliot turns, a little; and Quentin nods. "Like—I don't mean when I'm trying to get in your pants," Eliot says. "I just mean—we _cuddle_, like—we touch, like, a lot, in—even when it's not really, like—"

"Foreplay," Quentin says; and Eliot says, "I mean—it's always kind of foreplay"; and Quentin smiles, dimpling wildly: "When it's not foreplay for like—_right then_," he corrects; and Eliot rolls back up onto his side to face him.

"Yeah," he says, quiet. "That kind of thing."

Quentin nods. "Yeah," he says. "I—would say we cuddle, then."

Eliot nods, too. Swallowing. "But," he says; and then. Stops. Laughs, a little, and then— "but—we're not supposed to—to be doing it in front of my _mom_, right?"

Quentin shifts, a little. "I," he says, and then.

Stops.

"I mean, like—I don't fucking care, if daring to touch my boyfriend where other people can _see_, _gasp_, is considered, like—_rude_, or whatever," Eliot explains, "but—it's supposed to be _weird_, right? For—my _mom_ to see it, right, like—it's _supposed_ to be—_awkward_, and _terrible_, to like—have her see me—_kissing_ you, or—or holding your hand, like—she caught me—a few times, in high school, and I wanted the ground to like—_devour_ me, every time, but—"

"Yeah, but—you were in high school," Quentin says, "and your—"; and then—

—he shifts, a little.

Biting his lip; and Eliot—swallows. Because—because he doesn't want—

Eliot clears his throat. "It just—it seems like—like it _should_ be weird," he says. "To be like—hugging you, or—or _touching_ you, or _kissing_ you, _right where she can see_, but—but it _wasn't_," he explains: throat sore. "I didn't—I didn't even _think_ about it, not—not until—_after_, not while you had—your arms around me while I f-fell asleep on your shoulder, or whatever, not—but then I keep—hamster-wheeling, like, is it _because_ it wasn't, like, super sexual? Because—if that's it, if that's what it takes, then I feel like I should be, like, blowing you against a windowsill while draped in a Pride flag and wearing nothing but a set of nipple clamps and a fireman's helmet, or something, like—_fuck_ her": a sudden hot inarticulate surge of rage: Eliot wipes at his face; "and _fuck_ her fucking—Midwestern sensibilities, or whatever—" hand shaking— "like, does she not _get_ it? That we're, like, _doing it_?" Eliot laughs: wild, bleak. "Does she, like, think we're just _really close friends_?" he asks, throat raw; and then—

—swallows. Swallows. Swallows: as Quentin ducks down, to press a soft, warm kiss against the top edge of Eliot's left pec.

"Sorry," Eliot says, after a second; and Quentin lifts up. Shaking his head.

"No," Quentin says. Quiet. "Don't be. I get it."

Brushing his knuckles up over Eliot's throat, before he wriggles his arms out: tucking them around Eliot's back.

They kiss. They kiss—a lot, don't they? Eliot thinks. They kiss each other—all the fucking time, and it never—it never means, exactly, quite the same thing—except. Except—except for _I love you_, Eliot thinks, and _be with me_, and _I'm with you_: all those things it just. _Always_ means.

Quentin pulls back, barely. Touches his fingertips to Eliot's mouth; then rubs, very gentle, at the aching edges of Eliot's face.

"Like, I can't even make up my mind if I _want_ her to get it," Eliot says, thick. 

"Yeah," Quentin says. Quiet. Dark-eyed.

"I mean." Eliot laughs: sharp and painful; and says, "Since that seems—fucking _awful_"; and then.

Sighs.

Quentin doesn't say anything, for a minute. Just—pets. 

Pets.

Then he asks, "Was it awful when my dad saw us?"

Very quietly, as he rubs his fingertips trail—back. Card through the back of Eliot's hair; and Eliot—looks at him.

"You mean," Eliot says, "like—"; and then. Stops; because—he didn't _think_ Ted had ever, like, _caught_ them, or whatever, but—

"Like." Quentin shifts. "When he saw us kissing, and holding hands, and stuff."

And Eliot—

—lets out a breath.

And then tucks his hand, a little unsteady, around the back of Quentin's neck; as Quentin's eyes flutter shut.

Eliot kisses him. Very soft. 

The thing is—it's the kind of question that's just. _Impossible_, isn't it. To answer; because—because it _wasn't_ weird. Not really. Not after—the first couple times, maybe: not once Eliot had stopped being so fucking _jumpy_ about, like, Ted maybe-beating the shit out of him for defiling his adored only son, or whatever; because—that was just. So clearly not—even _remotely_ something that was actually going on with _Ted_. And that had been obvious—so fucking _early_: definitely after—their first two or three trips out, for sure: those early-winter weekends when they'd come to Jersey from Brakebills just to check in on Ted, when Eliot had spent half the time reaching stuff off the high shelves or changing lightbulbs (because God knows no one wanted _Quentin_ getting on a ladder, to reach that high bulb over the landing of the stairs) while Ted and Quentin had argued about the laundry: those weekends when Ted had given them _both_ huge hugs, coming and going; it hadn't been weird since—since maybe after the first time Eliot had realized that however hopeless Quentin was in the kitchen, he'd at least come by it honestly, and muscled the _both_ of them out of the way so he wouldn't have to watch Ted commit such atrocities against that poor defenseless tomato; or maybe that time Eliot had trailed through about nineteen stores in Brooklyn while Quentin Eeyored about what to get someone with terminal cancer for their birthday and then Eliot had stopped him from buying one of those very dumb, very expensive cubicle toys that you got for rich hipsters with no personality and said, _Q—I think he just wants—you, living your life, and maybe like—coming to visit him?_; and then, back at the Cottage, had helped Quentin make granola bars anyway (convenient; high protein; easy to eat; and they always seemed to make Ted feel less queasy), because Quentin was pretty good on culinary _ideas_, actually, even if he wasn't so hot at execution. It had definitely been before—_way_ before, Eliot thinks, the Fourth of July: when they'd all sat around in Ted's backyard drinking mint juleps; and when Quentin had gone in to get them all refills Ted had leaned over to tell Eliot—in the confidential manner of the very, very drunk—that he liked him soooooo much better than Quentin's previous girlfriend; and then turned—bright red: which Eliot had thought, at the time, was because of the _girlfriend_ slip, and had only learned much, much later was because of the slightly incriminating (yet also totally accurate) _lack of a plural_. That Fourth of July: after Quentin had come out balancing three more sweating mint juleps, when he'd sat back down in Eliot's lap because Ted only had two lawn chairs; and then they'd watched the fireworks and all smoked up together: because magic couldn't heal Ted, strictly speaking, but weed grown by magical herbalists definitely made him feel a whole fucking lot better; and—and it wasn't weird. It wasn't weird, to hold hands with Quentin over Quentin's stomach with Quentin's back warm against his chest while they sprawled out in Ted's second lawnchair, gently blazed; it wasn't weird, to tip Quentin's chin up, to steal a kiss in the laundry room or the kitchen or the hall; it wasn't even weird—well, not that weird, anyway—to have Ted knock on the guest room door on Sunday morning and call, _Curly Q, is there a reason Jules is calling on the landline?_ through the door, while Quentin scrubbed his hair out of his face—naked, next to Eliot under the guest room duvet—pushed himself up to sitting, blinking and groggy, and called back, _Uh—yeah, my phone's on Do Not Disturb and we've got a group project. I'll be right down_. It _wasn't_ weird, it wasn't—_ever_ weird, because—because it was _Ted_: Eliot thinks, helpless. Because—because the only thing that Ted had ever actually _wanted_, from Eliot, was to know that Eliot _loved Quentin_. So why _should_ it have been weird, then? Eliot is thinking: hot, defensive. To show it, in front of him?

Quentin cups his hand, warm, around the edge of Eliot's cheek. Petting, gentle, over his mouth. Left to right. Right to left. Left to right.

"I don't think Rachel thinks we're just friends," Quentin says. "I'm pretty sure she gets it."

His voice is so, so soft; and so, so gentle; and Eliot loves him so, so much: so much that—that it feels like—_hunger_, Christ: all the time. All the time. Like—_starvation_, sometimes, how badly he wants—for everything to just be—_okay_ for Quentin, and how little he can do about it: not able to fix—any of this fucking—painful family history bullshit, or Quentin's grief over Ted, or the way that now, _now_, Quentin's going to be worrying about—fuck, whether or not his great-great-grandpa was lonely in college, because he _would_, wouldn't he, because—Quentin's basically just—_incapable_ of hearing a story, and not—_living through it_, with the people inside of it—

Quentin shifts, a little, candlelight flickering over his face and shoulders; and then says, "I think it makes her happy." He licks over his own bottom lip, looking at Eliot. "To see _you_ happy," Quentin murmurs: his eyes dark and deep and bottomless; the way he always fucking—has _room_ for it, to—to _feel with other people_; and people just fucking—_respond_ to it, don't they? Because Eliot has—no fucking illusions, that his mom _isn't_ talking to Quentin, while Eliot's at work: because everyone always fucking does: just acts as though—as though he is a vessel. A bowl. And—and when all the people pouring all themselves into him give him more than he can handle, what the fuck can Eliot do about it, anyway? Fuck all, that's what: except—except lie hungrily face to face with him in the dark; and listen.

Eliot swallows. Touches—his scratchy cheek. His soft mouth: "Yeah?" Eliot whispers: tugging, a little, and Quentin's eyes flutter shut, as his mouth comes open.

"Yeah," Quentin says: voice thick; and then, "Fuck. Can you—"

And Eliot nods, propping himself up, a little, so he can push Quentin's mouth open around his two fingers.

"That's it." Eliot—pets. His thumb: "Good?" he asks; and Quentin shivers. Nods, blinking—up, a little, while he sucks; so Eliot. Pets over his tongue, with three, instead: and Quentin grabs at—at Eliot's back, his—_ass_—. "You're so good," Eliot tells him: _meaning_ it. "You—want all of it, hm?": and Quentin—whimpers, a little: nodding, nodding; so Eliot fits all four of his fingers into Quentin's drooling mouth: fucks it slow, and sweet, and gentle. "You feel so good—you're so good to me, baby": kissing the stretched-out edge of Quentin's mouth heart pounding while Quentin sucks his hand off with his dick half-hard against Eliot's hip and Eliot stiffening against Quentin's; Eliot, clumsy with tenderness, rubs their foreheads together. Their noses. "You suck it so good I want to keep you on your knees forever," Eliot whispers: and Quentin's breath catches. "Fold you down with your wrists behind you, hm? So you co—so I could make you hold onto your ankles, keep—keep you—perfect, so perfect, just like this, just for me, all the time": as beneath him Quentin shivers—nods—nods. "I could just—keep my cock nice and warm, just like this, inside you, all day long," Eliot says, petting the roof of Quentin's mouth. "You can just—have it to suck on, like a pacifier": and Quentin. Squirms, wild, underneath him: "Never have to feed you anything else," Eliot whispers: overwhelmed, drowning with him; and Quentin pulls off, shuddering, and presses his wet face to Eliot's throat, instead. Clutching at him: shivering.

Eliot takes a breath. Lets it out, as he flexes his hand; wipes it off on the sheet where it just-tucks under the pillow: "Okay?" he asks, very quietly; and Quentin. Nods. Still fucking—_clinging_ to him: "Or too much," Eliot asks, gentle: wrapping his arms tight around him; and Quentin lifts his head, taking a slow, deep breath, and says, "_Not_ too much, but—we were about. Ten seconds away from me begging and crying 'fuck me, Daddy, fuck me' and I—don't think this spell can take it, how badly I want you to pound me until I'm fucking—_sobbing_": and Eliot.

Shifts, a little; and Quentin laughs, a little. Sliding his hand up, to pet at Eliot's hair, as Eliot rubs his cock against him, just a little.

"I'm going," Eliot says, very gentle, "to make you scream"; and underneath him, all the tension runs out of Quentin's body.

"Yeah?" he asks, very rough. His eyes slipping shut: Eliot nods anyway.

"Yeah," he murmurs. Kissing Quentin's cheek.

Quentin nods. Pressing their faces together: Eliot—tucks, and winds, and shifts, and pulls: until his arms and Quentin's arms are fucking—stitching them together. Quentin is so beautiful, by candlelight. Well—he's beautiful all the time, isn't he? But—Eliot gets to see him like this; and that's—well. Fucking _magical_.

Quentin shifts, a little. His thumb—stroking, gentle, in the small of Eliot's back. It—pauses, for a second; and then Quentin inhales: "D'you think," he asks; and then. Stops. "Do you think I—fuck."

He takes another deep breath; and lets it out.

Eliot kisses him. Mouth. Cheek. "Hmm?" Eyebrow. 

The corner of his mouth, as Quentin—noisy, this close—swallows. "Is it—_okay_," Quentin asks. Rough. "Like, what—what I—what I _want_, or—I mean, Christ, I—it doesn't _feel_ like—I'm actually. Into my actual—uh—"

And Eliot thinks, _I was wondering, when that was coming_: resigned, somewhere low down inside him. 

"Do you mean," Eliot asks, very gently, "do I think it's okay that sometimes you call me Daddy?"

He doesn't want to pull back, but—Q doesn't answer. Just—lies there, tensed underneath him; and when Eliot lifts his head up; Quentin jerks his head in a nod. Even by candlelight, Eliot can tell he's just—getting redder, and redder, and redder.

Eliot suppresses the urge to sigh, but—he wants to. 

"Q," he says; and then—rubs at Quentin's jaw. "Quentin," he corrects: careful. "If you're really—like, _worried_ about it, you should talk to Caleb, but—for _me_, like, from this side of the bed—"

"You're on top of me," Quentin mumbles; and Eliot huffs.

"I mean—_yeah_," Eliot says, very wry, "so there's _that_"; and then—he does sigh, then. "If you're just—asking me, for my, like, two-cent opinion, or—whatever, then—I don't think 'okay' really enters into it, Quentin. You like to call me Daddy—yeah, well, you and like a full quarter of my class at Purchase, so like—there is," Eliot says, "apparently something about me": while Quentin presses his face into Eliot's shoulder, smiling. Eliot takes a breath. "And if you're asking about—like, power dynamics, or whatever, like—quite aside from—abstract sex-positive philosophy, which I _know_ you've got from Margo": as Quentin rolls his eyes; "—yeah, so—why bother," Eliot says, "and also like—just _eff why eye_, totally aside from what a contrary little shit you are about basically everything, like, _all the time_," as Quentin starts giggling; "—I have never," Eliot says, "not _once_, felt like you, like." He takes a deep breath: careful. Steady; and Quentin pulls back. Looking up at him, intent and vulnerable; and Eliot finishes, "like—confused me with Ted, or—whatever." 

Quentin's. Nose. Starts to wrinkle, a little; so Eliot—barrels ahead: "Or—or even, like. Had actual unresolved sexual issues with your dad, or whatever—": as Quentin—blanches; "—so I mean. _Yeah_," Eliot says. And—and cups. Quentin's cheek. "And—God, Q, even if—even if you _did_ have—issues, or whatever, I—I don't know, like—would it _matter_?" Eliot asks: feeling—so fucking—_protective_ of him, Christ: if—if _either_ of them's fucked up about it, Eliot's—definitely never thought it was _Quentin_. "If—if it felt—_good_ to you," Eliot says, thick, "to call me Daddy, if—if it felt. Good, and—and _safe_ for you, and—and Christ, Quentin, it makes _me_ feel—so fucking good, and—and so—so fucking _important_": throat sore. "Like—like I actually fucking _matter_, for fucking once," Eliot explains; as Quentin kisses, exhaling, Eliot's burning-hot cheek; and Eliot swallows. "Like—like for all you cared," Eliot says, "we could be—the only two people on the entire fucking planet": as Quentin nuzzles, gentle, down towards his mouth. Kisses, very soft, the corner. "And like—I definitely _do_ have, like—entire _volumes_ of—parental issues, even if they're not really, like—stashed in that corner of the library, but—but that is. _Not a secret_," Eliot explains, chest tight; as Quentin huffs again. Nodding. 

Kissing Eliot once, very gentle, on the mouth, before pulling back.

"I mean, is _that_—okay?" Eliot asks. Voice—tripping, a little. Wobbling, to the end: "With you, I mean," Eliot asks: a little—desperate, or whatever, about it; and Quentin kisses him again. Tucking his hand up and squeezing, gentle, inexorable, at the back of Eliot's neck.

"Does it really—feel good to you?" Quentin says. That round, hesitant vulnerability in his voice, that makes it barely sound like a question; and Eliot. Swallows.

"Are you actually—asking about me, this time?" Eliot asks, quiet. "Or. Or is this like—my birthday, again?"

Quentin looks away, for a second. "No," he says, rough. "I—about you, this time"; and Eliot nods.

Touches his cheek.

"Yes," Eliot says. "It feels good. It feels—" 

He has to stop. Throat working, for a second; every fucking part of him. Wanting to say—

—_baby_. 

"It's okay," Quentin says, soft. "You don't have to—"

"I just feel—so fucking _honored_," Eliot manages: ground fucking glass. He swallows. Swallows; as Quentin cups his face. "That—that you _want_ that from me," Eliot says. Too high: thin, twisted up; "that—that you want—to let me take care of you," Eliot explains; and then takes a breath. "And that you trust me to do it." He swallows. Quentin's hands on his cheeks. His mouth—

—brushing, just, across the ticklish ends of Eliot's eyelashes.

"I don't think I can give you an objective answer," Eliot says. Voice thick. "I like it too much." He takes a breath. "I like—everything. Every part of—what we do together": as Quentin nods, pressing in close. Pressing, very gently, their mouths together.

"But you like that, especially," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot takes a breath.

"Yeah," he says. "I do"; and Quentin nods again, and kisses him.

"Me too," he says, very quietly; and then—

—he cups Eliot's face. Holding him—back, still: just out of range. Looking at him, dark-eyed and intent.

"It makes me feel safe," Quentin says, "_you_ make me feel safe"; and Eliot swallows. "You make me feel like—I'm small, I'm just—I'm so fucking small, and—and helpless, and—and you'll take care of me," Quentin says, a little unsteady: "like—maybe it's—_okay_, that I'm not—_Alice_, or _Margo_, or—or fucking—_Sam Vimes_, or whatever, because—you'll protect me"; and then—he laughs, a little: blushing, Eliot can tell, wildly. 

Eliot swallows. Twists, a little, to kiss Quentin's thumb; and Quentin bites his own bottom lip, looking—dark-eyed; and embarrassed; and—and a little horny. Eliot nips, very gently, at Quentin's thumbnail; and Quentin leans in for a kiss.

Another.

(Another.)

"Okay?" Eliot asks. His chest—tight. Overfull.

Against him, Quentin wriggles, a little: "Yeah," he murmurs. Nodding—and then.

Sighs. 

"I just—I think I forget, sometimes," Quentin says, very quietly: looping an arm around him; "unless you're there, to remind me."

Their mouths. Together—_together_—

"Forget what?" Eliot asks; and then— "baby."

Quentin makes—a noise, good and hot and squirmy; and then—slides their knees together: "That—that I'm taking care of you, too," he says; and then—laughs, a little: nervous: and tucks his face down against Eliot's throat. Shoulders hunching up, awkwardly.

Eliot pets his back. Over, and over, and over. Murmurs, "You take—_such_ good care of me."

Quentin's arms going tight around his back.

"Yeah?" Quentin whispers; and then—ducks. _Back_: embarrassed, Eliot thinks; and then Quentin meets Eliot's eyes, in the candlelight.

Eliot swallows. "The best," he says, rough with earnestness; and Quentin tips his face forward, until they meet, in the middle.

They kiss.

And—_kiss_—

"Christ, I should let you get to sleep," Quentin says, rubbing their noses together; and then sighs. "Fuck, I'm sorry, I know how early you've been getting up, lately."

Eliot sighs, too, because—he's right, damn it. Fuck. Just—fuck everything, anyway: "So maybe just, like, a little _light_ fellatio," he suggests, as he props himself up on an elbow, to flick the candles out.

"A midnight snack," Quentin agrees, in the dark. Rubbing their feet together. "Fuck, I _hope_ it's not midnight—an amuse-bouche?"

"I want to make it a fucking—four-course meal," Eliot admits; and Quentin shivers, a little: pressing against him.

"I'm so fucking thirsty, Daddy," he whispers: and Eliot can feel—Quentin's mouth curling up, because not even he could deliver that one seriously.

"I've got a nice big fat bottle for you, right here," Eliot agrees; and Quentin presses his face in against Eliot's shoulder, laughing helplessly. "Big," Eliot insists, "and—thick and—and appropriately warmed? This—this is getting weird, isn't it?"

"What do you fucking mean, _getting_?" Quentin laughs; and then kisses him; and then pulls back just enough to prop his cheek up, on the other pillow. "You gonna give me—some cream?" he murmurs, reaching—down; and Eliot takes a very deep breath, very slow; and then leans in: "I've got so much, I feel like I'm gonna pop," he whispers, "and it's all for you, baby": nibbling on Quentin's bottom lip, as Quentin cups him, so so gently.

They kiss. Nuzzling.

"Seriously, though, I'm—getting way too hot for it, if you want me to actually like—get to sleep, sometime tonight," Eliot admits: rueful; and Quentin gives him one last little squeeze—Eliot shivers—and then puts his arms up, around Eliot's shoulders. "Um—could you maybe." Eliot laughs, a little. "Like—say something that isn't sexy?"; and Quentin (warm underneath him, nearly naked, _turned on_, Christ, fuck Eliot's life—) hums.

"Adam," he says; and then: "my grandfather, who—was old and smelled weird and had hair in his ears and he's dead, now, has been for years": and Eliot says, "Uh—yes. Okay, that's helping": and Quentin snickers, in the dark.

Eliot kisses his cheek. "What about Adam?" he asks; and Quentin—sighs, a little. Shrugs.

"I don't know," he says. "He was—I keep thinking about that book. About—Matthew's family, and stuff." Shifts, a little. "Maybe I'll finish it," Quentin says, very quietly, "someday"; and Eliot swallows. Touches his jaw.

"I'd read it," he says, soft; and Quentin huffs.

"You mean—you'd get me to read it to you erotically," he says, very dry; and Eliot kisses him: close-mouthed, almost—chaste, nearly. They're going to go to sleep.

"Yeah," he says. "Always."


	6. duet.

### 6\. duet.

#### Thursday, December 28, 2017

On Thursday, Eliot jerks awake so fast at the very first rasping buzz of his alarm that he's on his feet before he's even 100% sure what's happening: his phone gripped painfully tight in one damp hand, heart racing in his throat, while Quentin snuffles, a little, and then curls up into the warm crumpled space of sheets that Eliot'd left behind.

Eliot—blinks. Blinks.

And then—sets his phone back down on the nightstand, because he needs to shower.

He hesitates, for a moment; and then perches next to Quentin, just—just for a minute. Tugging the duvet up to his ears. Eliot had been dreaming—something. He doesn't remember. He's sweaty, though; and still—disoriented, he thinks, confused, about—about some things; and then he brushes a palm over Quentin's soft hair.

Thursdays are always—the worst, Eliot thinks, in the bathroom, waiting for the water to heat up: everyone always _acts_ like Mondays are the worst, but —Thursdays are way more terrible, because you've already had to pull yourself out of bed and wait for seven minutes to take a fast, barely-lukewarm shower where—where you're so tired you mix up your shampoo and your conditioner, Eliot thinks, feeling grim, and then—washes his hair again; in a bathroom where the fucking mirror never fucking defogs without just—opening the window, letting icy air stream in, while pumping dehumidification magic into the room in a way that'd exhaust you even if you _weren't_ already running on fumes and looking down the barrel of another ten-hour day, but it's not like you can just— just go back into the bedroom, Eliot thinks, already furious with himself, and—and aim the lamp straight at the mirror with a hasty and slightly nauseating light-barrier spell trembling between you and the softest, warmest, sweetest and also most sexually pliable human being you've ever met in your life, still mostly naked and asleep in your bed; and even with the lamp going full-tilt you still cut yourself shaving, because you're so tired your hands tremble and you're pretty sure you fall asleep a couple times, aren't you, when you blink; and the problem, the _problem_ with Thursdays is you've already _done_ all of that for most of the week but you still have to do it today, _and you're also going to have to do it again, tomorrow_: and furious with everything Eliot dumps the bowl he'd used for shaving water down the bathroom sink: it splashes two long white flicks of shaving foam up onto his vest; and Eliot looks up at the ceiling, taking a deep, steadying breath; and then dabs it off with toilet paper and goes out for a cup of coffee, because he doesn't have time to change.

The kitchen light's come on. Rachel is sitting at the kitchen table wrapped up in her pajamas and her huge ugly sweater; and Eliot feels—a hot, incomprehensible surge of anger, at—at _her_, at _himself_, at his job and the weather, just—fucking _all_ of it—

And then he scrubs at his face; and. And—and just.

Sets it aside.

"Morning," he says; and clears his throat. Heading over to the coffee maker.

"Morning," she says, quiet.

Well. There's that done, at least. Eliot nods, and opens up the coffee maker: pries her coffee pod out, wincing: it's still hot. New pod. Water. Mug. Plate. Knife. Peanut b—fuck. But they're out of bread. Somehow. Eliot checks the clock—still before seven, so his Do Not Disturb will still be on—then grabs his phone and texts Quentin: _Can you go down to Tonys for more bread?_, and then grabs a bowl for cereal, instead. They're almost out of milk, too, so he sends Quentin another text, not—not fucking _thinking_ about it: Quentin's serious face while he—buys them fucking—milk and bread and maybe some extra pasta so that Eliot can cook for him again, like he's not fucking—_leaving_ again in two and a half weeks—

Fuck. Fine. It's _fine_: coffee, cereal: it's a perfectly acceptable breakfast, isn't it? She's sitting by the desk, her back to the dark pool of the living room, so Eliot—takes a seat. Facing her, almost. He jams one corner of his paper towel into his collar and scoops up a bite of cereal, just in time for Rachel to say, "Um. Storm's still going, so—do you mind if I—"

He looks over at her, spoon still hanging out of his mouth; and she flushes.

Looking down.

He crunches. Swallows. Takes a sip of coffee: fine. He can—handle this, can't he? "Don't worry about it," he says; and then—takes another sip of coffee. There's not—really any reason, is there. Why he should be—

"I'd hoped to get on the road today," she says, low. "I know I've sort of—outstayed my welcome—"

"It's fine, honestly," Eliot says, voice light; and Rachel looks away.

Off to the side. Out—into the kitchen. At all that—honey-golden light. The clock is sitting upright behind her: Quentin hadn't put the sheet over it, before bed. From this new angle, Eliot can see how the light catches on—they're like little dots, amid the 'X' patterns: flecks of that same embroidered texture, half-hidden, all over the woman's billowing cape. Little—gemstones, maybe? he thinks. Lu does like her bling. And—looking at it off-center like this, it almost looks like she's moved inward, hasn't she? Closer to the center. And—for some reason. For some reason that makes him feel—_sharp_, like a switchblade, all the way down his middle: a feeling he doesn't understand and can't name surging up in him as he looks at a wood-cut woman wrapped up in 'X'es, half-hiding their diamond satellites: this figure standing in the heart of the window, just behind the couple embracing: catching the moon like—like the flare of candle, when it first catches, before it settles back in to burn—

"How'd you sleep?" Rachel asks; and Eliot sets his spoon back in the bowl, and looks at her.

She meets his eyes.

"Are we seriously—going to do this?" he asks, after a second; and she just—looks at him.

Silent, for a long, unreadable stretch.

"If—if it's not that you don't want me here," she begins; and he laughs.

"I mean," he says. "It's not like your mother's location is something where you typically get a lot of choice"; and Rachel jerks her head to the side.

Looking down.

Eliot looks down at his cereal. Sips his coffee, instead, but—he takes a breath, and then takes a bite.

"Sorry," he says. "That was. Supposed to be funny, I think."

She doesn't say anything, for a long, long moment. Then she says, "Quentin thinks I should. Have a conversation with you." 

"Yeah, but I mean, why break the habit of a lifetime?" Eliot says; and then. Takes another breath: deep, and slow.

She pushes her hair back, both hands. "I'm just," she says; and then. Presses her mouth together. Shakes her head: voice thin, when she says, "I'm trying to act like your mother."

Eliot laughs. Shakes his head, once. "Really?" he asks. His heart— "Why?" he asks: —aching; "I'm all grown up": and then laughs again.

Her mouth twists. "Okay," she says. "If you want—to do it like that."

"_I'm_ not trying to do it like _anything_," Eliot says, tight; and then.

He stops.

Recenters himself.

"Look," he says. Deep breath: one more. "Quentin's an idealist," he explains. Steady: calm. "And _his_ mom is—a perfectly decent human being, in a lot of ways, but she's also hard-driving and ambitious and obsessive about success, which makes _Quentin_, who is basically none of those things, feel like a worthless waste of oxygen every time they're in the same room; and it _still_ took him basically two decades to get to a point where he felt like he had the right to admit that he didn't want to get brunch with her twice a month, okay?" Eliot laughs. "So that's his standard," he explains. "For, like—why you might not. Be BFFs, with your mom." Shoulders back. Supple. Strong. "But—just because it's not like that between us, that doesn't mean that. We have to fake it, or whatever": the easiest thing in the world.

She's watching him, with—her lips parted, slightly. "I," she says, and then stops.

"I just mean—it doesn't _have_ to be—_horrible_, does it?" Eliot laughs. "Like—"

"I thought she lost custody," Rachel says; and Eliot, badly derailed, says, "—What?"

"I thought she lost custody," Rachel repeats. "Because. Of her wife."

"You thought—." Eliot stops. Staring at her. "—Fuck," he realizes. "You thought _Ted_—"

"It happens," Rachel says, very quietly.

And.

With a sudden white-hot flare of anger burning through him like paper—

"Ted would _never_," Eliot says, unsteady, "_ever_, not in—not a million years, would Ted have kept Quentin away from—"

"I never met him," Rachel says, flat.

"Yeah, well, _I_ sure as hell did," Eliot says, "and—Christ, Ted would've—rearranged the _atoms of the universe_, if it would've made Quentin happy—not everyone in the world is from Indiana, okay? Ted didn't _care_, that Val liked women; he was too busy being the person who drove Quentin to his appointments and sat up with him on bad nights—and I'm not—I mean, _God_, _Ted_?" Eliot asks: chest sore. "God, you can't—you can't just _say_ stuff like that, okay? You get that it—it hasn't even been a year, right? Half the time we're just—trying to get through the _day_, okay, and then—here _you_ are, acting like—like he'd _ever_ do something like—and you can't, you can't say that, you can't _say_ that to him, okay? I don't know why you'd think—I—I don't know why you even _came_ here," Eliot says: burning out of him. "It's not like we have a relationship, is it?"

And. The thing is.

The thing is that Eliot didn't, honestly, even really _think_ about it: not what—it meant, or how it'd sound; not until—

Rachel sighs, turning away from him: "No," she says, very quietly. "Probably not."

And.

She looks—_old_, he thinks; a bitter-sharp unwanted thought: because—because she's still—she's still so beautiful, he reminds himself, except—except she has wrinkles, doesn't she? At—the corners of her eyes, and all around her mouth; she looks tired, and worn out: steely threads of grey showing in her curls, with creased skin and a kind of baked-in tiredness that—that she _never_ had, not even—she just. She looks _old_: not—not like—not like Ted'd looked old, at the—not. Not like that, but—

"Jesus." Eliot scrubs at his face. "I—God, I'm sorry, I just—I'm just." Breathing in: "In a lousy mood," he says, "and—tired, I—I'm _exhausted_, and—that was both totally unfair and—and completely untrue, I—of course we have a relationship, you're—my mother": his throat aching, the whole time.

"It's okay," she says, quiet. "I get it."

"I'm—I'm really sorry," he says; and then clears his throat, standing up: "—and also—um, late for work, so—"

"No, no": she waves it away. "Go on, have a good day," she tells him; and Eliot nods: hesitating, for a minute, over whether he should—like, hug her, or something? What would Quentin do? Kiss her cheek?

Eliot sticks one last soggy spoonful of cereal in his mouth and puts his bowl in the sink; and then goes to put on his coat.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Eliot would've completely forgotten that it was his day, except that at nine, he sticks his head in to check in with Raj about whether or not they need isolated flooding capabilities on the small-format carrels, too, or just the ones for the mermaids and the leviathans—well, leviathan, singular, since they only could fit in one of those—and while Raj is double-checking the Fillorian Equality and Inclusion via Strategic Triumphs Yielding Better Interspecies Cultural Heterogeneity and Expansive Success laws—better known as Code 47893, at Hogar, because of the obvious HR issues raised by the acronym—Georgie waggles her eyebrows at Eliot over the top of her glasses and asks, "What've you got planned for Amahle this time, hm?": which. He doesn't. But poor preparation isn't exactly _ever_ the answer he really wants to give, at work, so he waits until she goes to get more water and then half-asses it by enchanting one of her reference books to fly away and hide every time she turns her back on it; but even he can admit that it's a stupid prank to play on someone with a gravity affinity. It takes Amahle all of about nineteen minutes to get so annoyed she just knocks that fucker out of his spell; but—well. He gave it a shot, at least.

And the thing is: Eliot still has so much to do on the multipurpose space he's _glad_ to have it over with. Cody comes in late, as usual, just-barely making his check-in with Lu; and then, after, he has a very loud, very carrying conversation with Raj—well, at Raj—in the kitchenette about how at the _Chantesonnerie_, they preferred the _cutting-edge_ methods for sun- and heat-moderating glazing, which aren't compatible with Hogar's _quaint_ and _traditional_ guidelines about exterior masonry: which, Eliot gathers, is why Cody hasn't finished the window designs yet. Then, at ten-thirty, Amahle comes back from _her_ Thursday check-in with Lu with an extra file folder (a pale pea green) and a grim expression: "Windows?" Eliot hazards, very low; and she nods, once, short, and then meets his eyes. Eliot doesn't do anything super tacky, like turn to look at Cody, but he can _feel_ him: an obnoxious, overexpansive lump of man, probably listening to John Mayer and—and sketching tits, or something: whatever the fuck it is he does, while the rest of them are doing his job, over at his douchebag illusioned Vantablack desk: _empty desk_, Eliot thinks, very grim, _empty mind_. 

Beyond a brief, intensely disorienting request from Georgie that Eliot lend his (dubious) expertise to an argument she's having about ration hacks with Raj—to wit, whether the remote co-casting honeycomb would be extensible to let someone off-world draw for a lead caster on Earth, to get around rationing (though—in this particular case, miracle of miracles, Eliot actually _does_ know the answer: it's not; and—as Eliot and Penny had discovered to their cost last winter—it'll give you one hell of a headache if you try), Eliot barely even looks up again until Amahle throws a paperclip at his forehead at half past two and says, "Hey! Do you want in on this ramen order or not?" in the tone of someone who has, in fact, already asked him several times. Eliot realizes, all at once, that he's starving, dying of thirst, and also desperately needs a cigarette and a piss, though possibly not in that order; and when he pushes up: "Uh—," he nearly passes out. He sits down again, blinking, with a thunk. "Yes, please," he says, even though he doesn't really like ramen; and Amahle rolls her eyes, and then turns her laptop around so he can pick out katsudon and a canned orange juice: lunch of someone, he thinks, but probably not champions.

"You're doing the coffee run," Amahle says. "I have to stay and sign for that": which is—nice of her, Eliot thinks, oozing off towards the bathroom on his way out, since it means he can catch up on nicotine on the way.

On the walk, his phone feels heavy in his pocket: a little overpriced brick of looming silence. Margo had texted him, once, in the night, to tell him that it looked like the snow was finally letting up, but her four texts from this morning of nothing but wordless screaming seem. Considerably more accurate: the snow is coming in so hard and fast that Eliot can barely keep his cigarette lit even with magic, and to be able to plow his way through it, he's pretty sure he's keeping himself bent forward at about a 45° angle. _You went out in this again?_ Eliot texts Quentin, while he's waiting in line at Starbucks. The first morning text he'd got from Quentin, around ten, had been a pic of his purchases huddled on the checkout belt at Tony's (bread; milk; box of penne; two slightly limp-looking bunches of herbs, oregano and basil; an onion; a can of whole peeled tomatoes; two packets of ground meat (one turkey, one beef) for meatballs, even if _Margo_ won't eat them; an extra jar of peanut butter, which is—probably smart; eight lemons, for some reason; a bag of popcorn, even though it's never as good as the stuff from Trader Joe's; a bottle of Cointreau, which at least explains the lemons; a packet of frozen pierogies, because Quentin apparently doesn't get that they're in Chicago now and he can do _so much better_; and a single pomegranate that'd probably cost him about $10), to which Quentin had added: _bread and milk and pasta stuff, got it. (is this why they say don't shop when you're hungry? ❤️)_; another, around eleven thirty complaining about how impossible it was to cross-reference the letters and the photos; and then the third, not even half an hour ago, which had said that he and Rachel were going to the Art Institute—the _Art Institute_—for some reason. Honestly. Eliot adds, _Like voluntarily?_; because the tattoos Kady gave them all in Antarctica can only do so much, and because Quentin _hates_ being cold, and because honestly, Eliot's having a hard time picturing Quentin voluntarily going to the Art Institute to begin with.

_have you ever heard of henry fuselli?_ Quentin asks, in reply; then corrects, _fuseli. sorry._; and Eliot rolls his eyes. He'd reply, but they call his name; so instead he has to turn his back to the room and cast about seven temperature-and-stasis charms on the carrier trays to have any prayer of getting anything back to the office in drinkable condition. So instead of answering then, Eliot saves it for while he and Amahle are wolfing down lunch on the office sofas: one text to pretend a total lack of familiarity with a major Romantic painter—_I can tell when you're trying to fake me out, you know_, Quentin replies—and again to wheedle Quentin into telling him all about the exhibit later anyway, because Quentin with a Task™ is always irresistibly gung-ho about doing it _correctly_. Eliot barely even minds putting his phone into his desk drawer after they finish eating so he can focus on the multipurpose space, because the promise of someday soon being able to convince Quentin to tell him all about the Fuseli exhibit while Eliot eats him out would keep him warm through _many_ a long cold, lonely winter. 

He lingers on that fantasy perhaps _slightly_ longer than he ought to, because it's—slightly more present in his mind than he'd really like it to be, when Lu comes out of her office and barks, "Amahle! Eliot!" Standing, Eliot bangs his knee on his desk leg—_not_ deliberately, but it does the trick—and tries to will down his flush: he must do it—vaguely acceptably, he thinks, because by the time he makes it through the walk to the conference room, he feels—normal, mostly. Lu is wearing a custom three-piece suit—the white one, with the Puerto Rican flag printed in the lining of the blazer—and while she strides in front of the whiteboard running down the plans for the Friday meeting, like a queen commanding her knights, Eliot manages to get it together enough to sketch out what notes he needs to, and not, like, pass out or start gibbering, or anything. It's not even that _difficult_, really: not paying attention to Lu would be harder. The spotlight on the clock hardly seems like it'd be necessary, even.

"Raj will stay here," Lu is saying, "since we're not proposing him for lead in the casting—," and Raj nods; "—which leaves room in the meeting room for the both of you," Lu says, pointing a green marker at Amahle and Eliot: and Eliot—jumps, almost: realizing for the first time that she is talking about _taking them with her_, to _the Library_. "But you're there to observe only, understand?" Lu asks, turning a sharp look on each of them in turn; so Eliot nods, while Amahle's saying, "Yes, of course." Eliot's pulse skipping up under his wrists. "And no socializing," Lu says, her marker drifting towards Eliot. Then she turns to say, "Georgie, can you cover the compliance issues? That's where I'm expecting the most pushback, so it might be helpful to be able to escalate to me."

"Yeah," Georgie says. "That's—hold on. Windows, the materials requirements, the heating, species-neutrality in signage, and, uh—"

"Accessibility issues," Lu says.

"There are forty-five separate Fillorian accessibility laws, and they're all like ninety-seven scrolls long," Georgie says. "Are we going into _all_ of them?"

"I think we're going to have to," Lu says, voice grim; and turns to the whiteboard to start making a table of which compliance issues apply to which categories of design decisions.

"Who does Lu expect you to be socializing with?" Amahle asks, on their way back to their desks. She's got her _my gossip spidey senses are tingling_ face on; but then she asks, "Ooh, are you, like, _connected_? Is the Head Librarian your aunt or something?" and Eliot—

"My—" Blinking. "What? No, I've never even—no," he repeats, more firmly. "I just—I know her PA, that's all. She was Quentin's term at Brakebills, before she went open source—introduced me to Lu, actually, which is sort of..." He waves a hand. Laughs, a little. "My brief dabbling in nepotism!" he says; and then.

Smiles, sort of.

Amahle looks—intrigued, mostly. "Is this Alice?" she asks. Leaning forward, elbows on the table: —oh. Right. Eliot had almost forgotten that they'd met.

"Yeah. The one who—"

"—was late to dinner," she finishes, nodding, "because of her fucked-up family"; and then jiggles her trackpad until her laptop wakes up.

"You say that like there's any other kind," Eliot says, dry; and Amahle snorts.

"Fuck you, I love my family," she says; and he laughs.

"Oh," he says, a minute later. "You're serious."

"_Yeah_, I'm serious," Amahle says. "My family's amazing. My entire extended family postponed our Christmas celebrations until March so I wouldn't miss them. My favorite cousin teaches English in Japan; we've got a snack box club. My baby brother goes to U of C and comes over every weekend so we can play video games and batch-cook for the week together, and—" she leans forward, dropping her voice— "and my grandma Skyped me last night from her trip to Costa Rica with her boytoy to ask me which sarong I thought looked hotter on her." 

She leans back. Spreads her hands, as if to say: _See? Amazing_.

"Wow," Eliot manages, after a moment. "That's—there's a lot going on there."

It's—strange. There is a slow, hard-to-read shift in Amahle's face, watching him; and then—his phone buzzes, and he digs it out of his pocket: Quentin. _we're still at the art institute, figured we'd just stay down here until you were off work. votes for dinner?_

Eliot's thumb hovers over the screen. _It may be late_, he admits. After—a bit. _8?_; and then—then looks up.

At Amahle. Watching him.

"Uh—Quentin." He holds his phone up. "Asking about—"

_that's OK_, Quentin says. _we don't mind waiting_.

Eliot rubs at his forehead. Thinking—

"El," Amahle says, low; and Eliot looks up. 

Amahle scoots closer. Leaning over her desk: "Are you—like, are you okay?" she asks, very quietly; and Eliot. Pauses. With his pencil— "Like—your mom," Amahle says; and then—hesitates. "I mean—are you _okay_, with her—with her. Staying with you?" she asks; and Eliot feels—

—a surge of resentment, blooming hot and angry under his ribs: that she—would _ask_ that, that she _can_; that she would even—_think_ it, about—about _Rachel_, of all people—

Eliot sets his pencil down. Picks it up. Sets it—he takes a breath; and then lets it out.

"Yeah," he says. Steady. He feels—_embarrassed_, for some reason: ashamed. He doesn't want her to—_know_, except—

She's like him. Isn't she.

In some ways.

"My mom's okay," he says; and then. Picks his pencil up again. "We're going out to dinner, after work, her and me and Quentin." He meets her eyes, with some difficulty. "My mom's okay"; he repeats, after a second, and she looks at him searchingly for a moment longer; and then nods.

"Okay," she says; and then pushes her laptop screen up again, and gets back to work.

"Thanks," he says, after a moment. Very quietly; she shrugs, waving it away, impatient: not even looking up.

"March 10th," she says, after a minute.

"Hm?" He looks up.

"March 10th," she repeats. "End of our week off—Christmas 2017, a few months late. My brother and I are driving out to Ann Arbor for the weekend and my car seats four. If, you know." She shrugs, still looking—irritated, honestly. Not quite looking at him. "If you're not doing anything, and Quentin can get away from his thesis for a while, Langa could borrow a couple extra ugly Christmas sweaters from his fraternity brothers and we could, uh. Swing by O'Hare, on our way out of town."

Eliot swallows, very hard. Looking at—her furrowed eyebrows, and mulish mouth; her huge tassel earrings and the very edge of the upraised wing of the albatross tattooed on her collarbone, just showing, between the top buttons of her black silk shirt—

"I'm trying to get out to New York, the week before that," Eliot says, after a second. "So—I have to check with Q, but. We might _both_ be coming in, via O'Hare?"

"Okay, I mean, that—definitely sounds like extra work," she says, "picking up two people instead of one, but—I _guess_ I swing it, if you bring me some decent bagels"; and he takes a long, steadying breath.

"I could probably arrange that," he says. Voice light; despite twelve thousand pound knot in his chest. He picks up his phone: a distraction, _anything_; and gets just—Quentin, still, ten minutes ago: _that's OK, we don't mind waiting_; and Eliot, hands trembling a little, heads out into the hall, towards the bathroom, while he texts him back, _Probably I'm supposed to make you get pizza downtown_.

Shoes, under the door to the second stall: Cody's, Eliot thinks. Great. Well, whatever. Fuck Cody. Cody can just—fucking _deal_ with it, can't he? With—with Eliot—hunched over the sinks, splashing water on his face, on his throat, his face—his face—

—and then realizing that that sound isn't—him, is it? It's—

And so Eliot.

Dries his face off. 

And his hands.

"Hey," he says, after a minute; and the sound. Stops.

Eliot can count his heartbeats. One, two, three: loud behind his ears—high up his throat—

"...hey," Cody says. 

His voice is rough. 

Eliot swallows, and dabs at the smudged edges of his makeup with the corner of a paper towel. 

Hesitating.

"I'm sure this is a violation of Bro Code, or whatever," Eliot says, finally: as evenly as he can, "but—I never exactly signed onto that." He takes a breath. "And I'm not cool just—leaving someone to. Hyperventilate in a toilet stall, so."

He closes his eyes, for a second; and then. Turns around. Leans back against the edge of the bathroom counter: watching Cody's oxfords, unmoving, still pointed towards the left side of the stall.

"Come on," Eliot says, as lightly as he can manage. "What'm I going to do, report you to the man police?"

"I dunno," Cody mumbles, "realize—I'm not. A badass, or whatever"; and Eliot rolls his eyes so hard it hurts, _literally_. A second later, Cody says, "It's just—"; and then.

Stops.

Eliot closes his eyes. Rubbing at the back of his neck. _My double-D girlfriend just dumped me_, he's thinking, in a (—probably too camp—) parody of Cody's slow, baritone mumble; _and they were out of cashew milk when I went to get my second latte_—

"I'm having," Cody says: slow. "A lot of trouble, with." He stops, for a second. No sound; and then: "Like, um. Focus, and shit," he mumbles, "like—executive function, or. Whatever, with. With my new meds," voice clumsy; and Eliot's heart—

—jumps up.

Turns over, under his ribs.

His pulse. That—slow, seasick _quaking_, un—under his skin—. 

"Yeah?" Eliot says, after a second. "I'm sorry. That, uh." 

He stops.

After a second, Eliot rubs at the back of his neck; and says, "I know how hard that sucks."

Cody doesn't say anything, for a minute. Then—

—he pushes the stall door open: looking—_blond_, and enragingly normal, and also—ashamed, Eliot thinks, with a hot, half-angry pang: he just looks. So fucking—_ashamed_ of himself, and Eliot—

—point one: Eliot really, really dislikes Cody. Cody may've come out of the Chantesonnerie with an admittedly sort of unusual design portfolio and a thesis about tessellating space-expansion spells that had seemed—plausible, to Eliot, at least, like, what does he know, really; but on a day-to-day basis, Cody's still without question an entitled, useless, self-involved cishet white boy: and while it's not like Eliot doesn't have prior experience with the breed, it never really makes him feel like he knows how to deal with them any better. And at _Hogar_, specifically, the functional politics of Cody being an asshole in the _ways_ that Cody is an asshole and to the people to _whom_ Cody is an asshole always makes Eliot want to take out apologetic billboards on the side of the building opposite: _I'M SORRY_, he wants to scream, _I KEEP TRYING TO TAKE OUT MY TRASH BUT HE KEEPS FUCKING COMING BACK IN_; even though Eliot does, actually, know that his cringing embarrassment over being associated with Cody in any way, shape, or form is, in fact, _extremely_ far from the point. But standing in sixth floor men's restroom in their building watching Cody flushed scarlet and bent forward with—with an all-too-familiar kind of crushing, mind-blankening shame, Eliot—can't. He can't, he _can't_, he can think Cody's an obnoxious bag of dicks with a fucking freight train of unchecked privilege but Eliot still can't just—_leave_ him with—with this. 

Can he?

"You have help?" Eliot asks, after a second. Trying to—resist the urge to fidget. "I mean. Like—help like, have you talked to your doctor?"

Cody nods, once. Still not—not quite looking at Eliot: red-faced, shoulders hunched.

"That's good," Eliot says. "That's—that's a start, right?": and Cody presses his face to the side of the stall. "Is—is your doctor helping?" Eliot asks: throat tight; and then watches Cody's shoulders lift, slow, with his breath.

Sink again, as he lets it out.

"I. I don't—_know_," Cody says. "I don't know, I don't know yet. Lu's going to fucking—fire me": voice thick; and Eliot—

—swallows.

"Have you explained what's going on?" he asks; and Cody—hunches in against the wall. Pulling one solid forearm up, to rest on the side of the stall, blocking his face from view.

And the thing is.

The thing is—

The thing is: it is not, in any way, shape, or form, Eliot's first time at this particular rodeo; and—and even with—with people Eliot actually—_likes_, and _cares_ about, and—_values_—

Eliot rubs at his forehead, turning back to the mirror to check his hair. Pushing—pushing down that inevitable fucking—_tidal wave_ of irritation, and impatience, because—

—because it doesn't help. He does _know_ that: it _never_ helps. He knows that. He does: Eliot knows, down to his liver and his intestines and his stomach, that it is the last fucking thing in the world that would help Cody, right now.

"Who helps you out?" Eliot asks. Normal, probably. Gently enough, he hopes. "Like—I mean. At home."

In the mirror behind him, Cody's broad shoulders lift: slow, tectonic; and then lower: as Eliot tightens his hands on the edge of the sink.

Waiting.

"My roommate's cool," Cody says, after a long, uncomfortable minute. "He gave me a ride, at Thanksgiving": and, just.

Jesus fucking Christ. _That's_ the standard? You fucking—fly home for Thanksgiving, and "emotional support" is the dude who _gave you a ride_?

"Yeah," Eliot says. "Okay." As evenly as he can. "That's good. But does he... uh. Know about—"

"Yeah," Cody says; and then sighs, pulling his face off the side of the stall, which has left hard, reddened blotches next to his chin and—and his mouth, eaugh, because straight boys are revolting. After a second: "I mean—he gave me a ride to the hospital," Cody says, "after Thanksgiving"; and Eliot—swallows, hard. 

A high, clear-sharp tone, ringing somewhere far away: resonating inside the back of his skull. 

"You're friends," Eliot says, after a minute.

Cody shrugs. "He's cool," he says; and _God_, someone please save Eliot from the heterosexual American male, and his wildly clichéd interpersonal incompetence— "He's been, like. Buying a lot of, uh. Extra Power Bars and stuff, lately": and—

—and all at once, Eliot has a bizarre, split-screen moment of awareness, where part of him is—weirdly touched, at the idea of Cody's probably equally idiotically emotionally constipated roommate probably, like—playing Madden with him, or whatever, the whole time Cody was—

—because _fuck_: the other part of Eliot is thinking. As he is realizing—

That week: Cody had been out for an entire week. Hadn't he. He'd called in with a bad cold, and no one in the office had believed him at all because it'd been coming straight off the long Thanksgiving weekend, and because it had left Georgie and Amahle scrambling to finish his overdue environmental impact analysis while Raj gave Eliot a crash-course in the constraints for designing magic-resistant acoustic paneling and Lu had told them all she'd fire anyone she caught gossiping instead of working, and no one had really believed her: especially since she'd had to say it over the phone, rough and nasal, since she was working from home through the 'flu. At the time, it had seemed—_typical_ of Cody, hadn't it. It had just seemed—

"That's good," Eliot says, finally; and then—shifts. Against the edge of the sink. He's probably getting—water marks on his trousers, which—. "I'm glad you have someone looking out for you," Eliot says, somehow; and Cody—

—hunches up again, pushing—pushing his whole fucking body—back up against the wall of the stall—

_C'mon_, Margo had barked. _Get up. Spa day—_

Eliot presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, and takes a deep, slow breath.

"Okay," he says, after a second, and then—

—laughs. 

"Look," Eliot says. Dropping his hands. "I have a fair amount of experience dealing with." He scrubs at his forehead. "The whole—meds, hospital, therapy, self-care, doctor, hospital, meds merry-go-round. Like." His heart is pounding. He swallows, mouth desert-dry: "Personal experience," he says, finally, "okay?": knowing that Cody will misunderstand him; even though it isn't a lie. "I know how hard it is," Eliot says; and then. Fighting—that awful twisting-writhing knot of snakes inside of him— "Hard," he says, "and. And _important_. You know?"

Still not quite looking at him, Cody rubs at his own face: one broad heavy hand.

Nods.

Eliot looks up at the ceiling. Blinking, at their fuzzing-bright overhead lights. "Okay," he manages. Voice—normal, almost. "So. Please believe me when I say that this isn't. A trick question, or anything, because—it's not." Shoulders back. Spine straight. Strong core; and Eliot looks straight ahead and asks, "Do you need to go to the hospital right now?": a hot, dull ache in his throat.

"No," Cody says, quiet.

"Are you _sure_?" Eliot asks; and Cody nods. "Are you going to hurt yourself?" Eliot asks; and Cody shakes his head, looking up.

"Nah, man," he says; and then, "No. I'm—I'm okay, _really_"; and Eliot feels—

—like a balloon. 

String snapped.

Eliot leans back against the sink. Folding his arms over his chest, his thundering heart: "Okay," he says. 

Rough.

Cody leans his cheek against the stall partition. Watching Eliot: it's the first time, Eliot thinks, that it actually has felt like—like Cody might, actually, be looking at _him_. Eliot's a first-year apprentice; and Amahle, on the third year of her contract, is technically first-year staff; but Cody's always acted like he was _different_ from them, somehow, and not just, like—the dude who got hired the year in between them, from—quite frankly—a sort of second-rate magical school that he irritatingly thinks is super important because it's old and in France. But Cody doesn't ever talk _to_ them, does he. He talks _at_ them, or _over_ them; but—he's just—always so fucking—up his own ass, all the time—

Eliot rubs at his forehead. Wishing—to be. 

Anywhere else, at all, almost.

"What's your boyfriend's name?" Cody asks, after a second.

"Um," Eliot says; and laughs. 

Because—because it makes Eliot—_mad_. It makes him—it actually makes him—he's mad at, at himself, for saying any of it; at Cody, for acting—_entitled_ to it, like Georgie didn't—stop Eliot on his way to the elevator, yesterday, and say, _Oh! Eliot, you were asking about places to take Quentin—do you know about Open Books?_: just while Cody was walking by with another folder of work that someone else was ultimately going to end up doing for him—and Eliot—Eliot had sworn up and down, _years_ ago, that he was done hiding, but he never fucking promised _anyone_ fucking _anything_ about not hiding _Quentin_. And Cody—_Cody_, with his blithely oblivious steamroller personality; and the way he seems to have—a direct line, on exactly the most painful thing to say to everyone, in exactly every situation; and the way that everything that happens in the office only matters to Cody to the precise extent that it is, in fact, _about Cody_: frankly, in this idiotic trivial situation that means nothing about anything, sure, maybe Eliot doesn't want to let Cody, like, dissolve into misery in a bathroom stall; but Eliot still would protect Quentin from Cody with every last ounce of his life. Cody isn't fucking _entitled_ to _Quentin_: not any. Fucking. Part. But—even through the blind surge of anger, and irritation, and fear, Eliot knows that—that there's a dumb way to do that (the Eliot way); and a way that might, actually, be smart: because Eliot's already lied to him, hasn't he? In a way. Because Cody doesn't actually _realize what he's asking_, when he asks about Quentin; because Eliot has already—stitched himself into the disguise. So it's not like it'd help to give a fake name to Cody. Especially not _now_, when it'd mean that Eliot would have to pretend that the boy holding his hand next year at the holiday party was a _different_ bookish nerd that he's been completely idiotic about for years; especially not if it ends up being—like, at the holiday party next year, and hopefully the _next_ year, and—and maybe even. For. A while, after that. Like, thanks, but no. That would be. _Ridiculous_. So right now, in this particular situation, the best thing Eliot can really do, probably, is—

Eliot clears his throat. "Quentin," he says. Rough.

Parched.

Cody nods. "He's still at Brakebills, right?" he asks; and Eliot—

—looks at him. 

His red face. His hangdog expression. His extremely-yikes banker-bro take on a Hitler-Youth haircut, and his crooked novelty tie—it's screenprinted to look like notebook paper. College ruled, probably.

"Yeah," Eliot says. "Third year."

Cody nods again. "Does he help?" he asks, low and rough; and Eliot folds his arms over his ribs; his heart pounding, wild, inside his chest.

Jesus, Eliot. Calm down.

"In some ways," Eliot says, after a second. Thinking: _Christ, I hope so_. "But—." He sighs. "_You_ know," he says, then corrects: "we _both_ know," after a second. "How much of it," Eliot says, "you have to do for yourself."

Cody's face gets redder. Looking down.

"Look," Eliot says, "yes. Okay. Fine. Yeah, you do it for yourself, but—yes, it's—_easier_, maybe, with—with—" _a backstop_, he remembers: "—with a backstop," he says; and then. Takes a breath. "So. Yeah, that's—something," Eliot says. "That. That we've got, I guess—yes." He stops, and rubs at his face. "It's something someone else _can_ help with, you know?"

"Yeah," says Cody, quiet.

"Yeah, so," Eliot says. Feeling—prickly. Strange. He clears his throat. "Is there—anyone who. Could do that for you?" he asks, finally. "You—went to the Chantesonnerie, right?" Like the entire fucking office doesn't know.

Cody shrugs, looking down at his feet. "Yeah," he says. "But I didn't exactly leave anyone behind."

Eliot's fingers twitch: reflexive. "What's your roommate's name?" he asks; as Cody flushes a dull, dark red. 

"Matt," he says. "Uh—he really is just my roommate, though."

"Yeah," Eliot says, "there actually wasn't a high likelihood of me thinking otherwise": bone-dry.

Cody huffs, looking up at him again. "Sorry, man," he says.

"We're actually doing fine without you," Eliot says; and Cody snorts; and then falls into a dumb, braying laugh.

It's—a pretty stupid laugh. Loud, and ungainly, and—and _awkward_—it reminds Eliot of Josh, honestly. 

Except.

Except that Eliot actually likes Josh, sort of.

"You're—you're really good at this," Cody says, after the long, lopsided silence that follows; and Eliot huffs. Shakes his head.

"At what, exactly?" he asks. "Never minding my own fucking business? Or—"

"At being a person," Cody says; and Eliot stops like running into a wall full-speed, feeling a flush rushing out from his chest: whitewater on rock.

"I—thank you," Eliot says, because. Because—because. Because what the fuck is he _supposed_ to—

"How does he help?" Cody asks. "Your—um. Quentin"; and Eliot has a sudden, wild moment of internal honesty: _Oh, you know, face masks, the occasional halfway decent meal, a little light sexual domination—_

"He, uh." Eliot looks up at the ceiling. Trying to— "He. Listens to me?" He can feel—the _weight_ of it, ungainly and recalcitrant: like an animal, squirming out of his arms. "And—he pays attention, I guess?" He shrugs, feeling. Almost painfully awkward: there's just. Not that much that he _can_ do, is there? "He'd notice, I think," Eliot says. Hopes. _Prays_, if saying that isn't just—absurd, at this point: "Whenever something was wrong." He wants—Christ.

Christ.

"He cares about me," he says, finally. "And. Sometimes that—doesn't help, exactly": a sharp, dull ache in his chest. 

"But," Eliot says, "sometimes it does."

Cody nods. 

"And—and what would he tell me," Cody asks, gravel-rough, "right now."

There is a long, uncomfortable pause.

"Well," Eliot says, finally, "he and I are—totally different people." He—laughs. Chest tight. "And neither of us is you, but I think. I think the best advice that _I_ can give you right now is that—I think you need to talk to Lu, Cody": and Cody.

Half-turns away: like—escaping, Eliot thinks. 

Watching Cody blink up at the ceiling. Rub at the flushed edges of his face.

After a moment, Cody asks, "D'you really think so?" 

Gravel-rough.

Eliot sighs. "Honestly?" he asks; and Cody nods. "I think you kind of _have_ to," Eliot says; and then sighs again. "I think—it's not like." He doesn't—he doesn't want to have to—shoulders back. Core strong. "I mean—look," he says, finally. "You're having enough trouble—uh, like. Getting things done that—that even I—wondered": cringing a little, at the lie. "If, uh. If there was something going on with you."

Cody nods, looking down at his feet again, silent.

Eliot pushes away from the counter. Turning, just—just to check—

"I kind of can't believe I have to talk about—my fucked-up brain to _Lu fucking Ximénez_," Cody blurts out, all at once; and then— "Fuck. _Fuck_. Jesus, fuck, you're right, though, aren't you": and Eliot.

Smooths down the front of his vest.

"Sometimes," Eliot says; "I don't make a habit of it or anything." 

Light. 

He digs his phone out of his pocket: fuck, it's already after five. And he still has to—

"Look, I'm going to be around for another hour or so," Eliot says, turning back to Cody. Feeling— "I have to go," he says, decisively, "at six. But if you want to, like—check in with me, or anything, after you talk to Lu..."

Cody looks down at his feet. "Thanks," he says, rough. "I—thank you."

"Yeah." Eliot licks over his bottom lip. "Uh. Maybe—maybe tell Matt you're having a shitty day, or something."

Cody is still, for a minute. Before he—

Nods, once. "Yeah," he says, quiet. "I—I don't know. Maybe": and Eliot.

Resists, manfully, the urge to grind his teeth.

"Think about it," he agrees; and then slips back out into the hall. 

To the office. 

To his desk.

Amahle looks up at him, as he sits down. "Where the hell have you been?" she asks; and he shakes his head. Feeling—annoyed, at the whole fucking situation: because he can't fucking say anything, can he? _Wouldn't_, at any rate. He can't see it, actually, when Cody comes in from the hall to his back, or note him heading into Lu's office, probably without knocking because he usually doesn't; but Eliot _can_ watch the entire scene play out just by the tiny shifts in Amahle's dark eyes, before they snap back to his.

"What happened?" she asks, low and rapt, her dark eyes wide; and he looks away, and flips open his blue folder; and then gets out his phone.

"Not worth gossiping about," he says, very light; and then, "I'm leaving at six. I've decided."

Amahle hesitates, for a second, before she says, "...Yeah?" 

Very slow.

"Yeah," Eliot says. "I'm just—leaving at six, and taking—the rest of this home, or ignoring it for the morning, maybe I'll just stop doing my job altogether—I'm meeting Q and my mom for pizza, tonight, since they're over at the Art Institute. What do you think, should I push them towards Gino's East? Or Giordano's?"

And Amahle—pauses. 

Her eyes dart: looking towards Lu's office, then back to Eliot. Searching his face for a long, taut moment, before she says, "_Tourists_": with her voice pitch-hot and scornful; and with a sudden surge of relief welling up from his stomach, he knocks his shoes into hers, under their desks.

It takes a while. Long enough for Eliot to have at least half-assed everything he absolutely needs to have done by morning: Amahle's already left, before Cody comes out. Out of the corner of his eye, Eliot watches him slide his phone into his pocket, beside that stupid all-black desk: his blond head bowed, not looking at Eliot; and Eliot feels—his stomach sinking. Not—not quite sick.

But.

"Hey," Eliot says, swiveling in his chair, when Cody starts buttoning his coat; and Cody scrubs at his face. 

"I gotta go," Cody mumbles; and then straightens up: but when his eyes meet Eliot's something—shifts. Doesn't it. In his expression. "I'm, uh." He scrapes his bangs off his face. "Meeting Matt," he says, "Taco Tuesday"; and Eliot—hesitates, for a second.

"It's Thursday," he says; and Cody shrugs.

"Tostada Thursday," he corrects; and then gives Eliot a limp, tired smile; just as Lu sticks her head back out of her office and says, "Eliot—a word, please": so Eliot. Swallows, and stands up, and then gives Cody a hopefully-supportive nod because it's the best he can think of, on his way over to Lu's office.

"Shut the door," she says, nodding at him, as she slides back around her desk; so—he does: watching her sit back down and feeling—oddly embarrassed. As though he's—sixteen again, caught—with Taylor on that trip to Deam Lake, when they were—smoking up; or—or— "Have a seat," Lu says, waving a hand at the chair facing her; and so Eliot.

Sits. 

Lu's desk is broad and low; not messy, but perpetually overfull: stacks of reference books and file folders: it's exactly the right height for her, and Eliot has long suspected that the chair opposite it was probably scaled down, slightly, to match. It doesn't exactly make him feel _less_ like he's being called in to the principal's office, does it: having to fold his knees halfway up his chest.

"I'd like to know the circumstances under which you think your personal life belongs at the office," she asks: in that quick, spiky way of hers; and Eliot.

Blinks.

"_Eliot_," she says, around that long, confused knot of silence; and Eliot says, "I—uh. I would think. That if—if it was. Becoming relevant to my work—" 

"Yes, your work," Lu interrupts; and Eliot shuts his mouth. 

Meets her eyes. 

"You've been doing very good work, Eliot," she says; and Eliot—nods. Feeling— "I'm extremely pleased with the progress you've been making," Lu says. "And I am _very_ well aware, when I hire a junior architect direct from graduate school, that there is a period during which they will be adjusting to the working world, and that there are certain—let's call them growing pains," she says, leaning forward, "that are simply—unavoidable, during that process. That is _why_ I offer, and indeed _require_, that my juniors all sign three-year contracts. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Eliot says: just-barely repressing a reflexive _ma'am_.

Lu nods, once, brisk. "I'm glad," she says. "Because I would hate to think that _you_ believed that I was—unaware, or insensitive, to the sorts of—again, _growing pains_, that can, frequently, lead to under-mentored young people finding themselves—adrift, early in their professional lives; or burning out unnecessarily, when they might've otherwise gone on to truly _brilliant_ careers."

She pauses, then, looking at him with that same garnet-bright flinty expression; and Eliot says, "—Yes," because—because it seems like she's expecting him to say something; and then—rewinding, with some effort: "I—no, I know you are, uh. Aware, that we can be—"

"Difficult, at times," Lu interrupts. Still watching him. "Time-consuming. _Not infrequently_: a total waste of pay." Eliot can feel himself flinch, helpless; but she shakes her head. "_No_. This is not an environment where you can afford to make things personal, Eliot. I have told you: I am very pleased with your work. You are progressing every bit as quickly as I could want. But—Eliot. Taking you on was a _risk_. It is _always_ a risk. With _every single one of you_." She flattens her hand on the table edge. "I invest—three years in you, to teach you," she says: pushing. Eliot can see— "and in exchange, I ask you to invest three years in me, to learn": —the tendons, tightening. In her wrists. "That is how I mediate the risk, in part," Lu says. "But it is always," she says, "_always_ a risk": and closes her hands, in fists.

Eliot swallows. "I—I, um. I do know that."

"Good," she says. "Then—I hope you know, too, that I'm not here to make my juniors feel warm and fuzzy all the time, or to coddle your sense of your own specialness—any of you": and Eliot—flinches, once, reflexive; before he gets himself back under control. "To be perfectly frank," Lu barrels ahead, "I've _long_ thought that magical academia subscribed to a number of uncomfortably brutal ideas about student welfare, but if any of you have made it out of that environment still expecting kid-glove handling—well, then, I am, apparently, incorrect." She spreads her hands again, open on the desk: her mouth pinched. "I am not here to be your friend, or your—" she waves a hand— "your psychotherapist, or your babysitter, or your _mama_: I am your _boss_, do you understand?"

And Eliot.

Mutely.

Nods.

She watches him. Eyes—glittering, hard. "When I met you at Alumni Day," she says, "two years ago. You were arguing with Katherine Witherspoon about Félix González-Torres, do you remember?"; and Eliot flushes.

"Yes," he rasps; and she nods. 

"You're embarrassed," she notes; which—.

"I was—being pretentious," he says. 

"No, you were being honest," she says, "about what you see"; and then sighs. "Look. Were you—brilliantly perceptive? No, of course not. I mean, I could _lie_, I could tell you: oh, Eliot": in her Anglo-voice: "What a genius! What insight! I simply _had_ to hire all those marvelous thoughts on art!": no accent, the one she uses with clients she hates. Then she waves a hand, and sighs again. "I could just as easily say, oh, well, I _enjoy_ listening children describe art they cannot possibly understand," she adds: tired. Herself again. "But—you do understand it." She rubs a hand over her face. "You just understand—the view that you see. Which is, inevitably, a different view of it than—for example—Kate Witherspoon sees."

"She knew him," he says. Tight.

"Well, I didn't," she says, very reasonably. "And I still found a lot of what you said—oh, yes, it was very simplistic, in places: but Kate has—you know, a beautiful house, a husband, children—well, I guess they're grown-up now; but—look, maybe one of her daughters goes to Bard and kisses girls sometimes": she waves a hand, "and that's as close as she gets, you know?"; and Eliot thinks: _I'm supposed to laugh_; and doesn't. "But she doesn't _make_ things. She just—_loves_ them, maybe": and Eliot. Shifts. "So she looks at Félix's work," Lu says, "and she sees—love, death, grief; love for her friend and her friend's tragic death and her grief over her friend and her love for her friend, and, yes. That's _there_, of course, of _course_ it is, but—Eliot, you talked about _what was made_, and you talked about _how he fought_. Because—fighting, and making. Making as fighting. Those are—_recognizable_ to you. Right?"

Eliot—'s. Chest. Feeling—fucking _battered_—

"Yeah," he says, somehow. 

Because—he does remember that conversation. He had said: _the thread of his personhood, stretched through the renewable resource of his work_. He'd said—_immortality in mutability_, or something like that. He'd said—

A lot of crap.

Lu nods. "To me, too," she says; and Eliot.

Nods.

"Okay," he says, very quietly. His heart thumps, under his ribs. His skin—

"I can shape you to the work," she says. Leaning forward, eyes burning. "I can shape you to the work, if _you_ will learn how _you best fight_. Do you understand?"

Eliot swallows. "Yeah," he says; and then—turns, looking for his—no. He didn't—bring anything, did he. "I—sorry," he is saying. "I didn't mean—sorry."

Not—not knowing—what else—

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she says: brisk, decisive. Flipping open her laptop. "I just want you to learn. Move forward. _Build_, right?"

"Right," he says; and then—pushes up to his feet. Stumbling, almost: Christ, get it together. "Uh—was that—all, or—"

"Yes," she says; and then looks up at him. "You can leave the door open, if you're heading out."

"Yes, I—" _'m meeting—_: but he can't exactly—_say_ something like that, can he? So—so he—tugs his vest straight, as he puts his shoulders back. 

"Yeah," he says, light. "I'm heading out."

She nods, once, and doesn't look up again.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Dinner is—awkward. A little too quiet: Rachel mostly just hunched over her plate, picking at her food; while Eliot tries to remember that he's renowned for his sparkling and erudite conversation, and fails. Quentin, for his part, oscillates between a weirdly intense school report on beasts and monsters in the art of Henry Fuseli, his knee practically vibrating on the booth bench next to Eliot's; and then a sort of worried, clingy quiet; and Eliot can't shake himself out of his shitty mood enough to do more than give a lot of lopsided, off-key responses, while they're eating; and then—after Rachel's sidled off to the bathroom—kiss Quentin so long and fervently that the host both brings them the check and then, very quietly, asks them to leave. Normally Eliot's delighted to be asked to leave restaurants, when he's out with Quentin, because literally nothing in the world makes Quentin hotter for it than being embarrassed in public—like, it's not really Eliot's thing, but whatever, he doesn't judge; and at this point he's gotten too many desperate, half-delirious blowjobs in convenient alleyways and bar bathrooms to pretend any sort of kink high ground at all—but it's not like he can just. Take Quentin to the john of the bar next door and gently ease him, whimpering, down onto his knees, when the only reason they're still there in the first place is that _Eliot's actual, literal mother_ is weaving her way back to the booth through the sea of tables, smiling anxiously, as she dries her hands off on the front of her flannel shirt. So. That's bad; and the L, coming back, is even worse: not quite rush-hour-packed, but crowded, which—predictably—spikes Quentin's anxiety hard enough to dispel the last of that pretty lust-glazed blush, which Eliot wouldn't've been able to do anything about anyway (which _also_ sucks); and besides, Rachel's just—fucking _silent_: leaning, with her eyes closed, against a seat-back, just-swaying with the motion of the train; as across from her, Quentin, eyes closed, leans swayingly against Eliot. 

In the apartment. Fine. Eliot hangs up his keys, Quentin's; then helps Rachel off with her coat while Quentin is sitting on the footstool, arguing with his bootlaces. Rachel's face is pale, eyes tired and pinched at the corners the way she gets when her head hurts, or—well. When her head hurts. "Coffee?" Eliot asks her, holding a hand down to pull Quentin up. "Or—" He shifts. "It's late, I know, it's just—so cold," he says; and then. Laughs, almost. "So—tea, maybe? Or cocoa?"

"Um." She pushes her hair back. "Yes, thank you, tea sounds lovely—what kind?"

"It's, um. I've got two, I have—" He shuffles around Quentin—awkward, in the tiny mouth of closet and hall—and then touches his cheek. "Chamomile, baby?" he murmurs; and Quentin nods, unzipping his hoodie, so Eliot leads Rachel into the kitchen. "Chamomile," he tells her, "and then—this mint-lemongrass stuff that Al—a friend of mine always leaves here," getting three mugs down, "when she's visiting her parents, so—"

Rachel—hesitates. "Her parents live in Chicago?"

"Yeah," Eliot says. Shifts. "I don't really like it," he admits, "but she says it's good with honey, or, um—"

"Um—chamomile, please," Rachel says. Her gaze sliding to the side, as she hunches down into her sweater. 

He nods; as she—shuffles, not looking at him, over towards the clock. Looking down at—oh, the armored woman, probably: he thinks; probably—admiring that fucking—ramrod-straight guarded posture of hers; or the glittering spikes jutting out of her curly hair: that seems, Eliot is thinking, like the sort of thing Rachel would be _very_ interested in.

He starts the kettle. Knowing it's—unfair. Unkind. He gets down three mugs. The chamomile. When Quentin's having a bad time he likes some vanilla extract in his, so Eliot gets that down, too, and the milk, even though milk is weird in chamomile (sorry, Quentin), and the honey. He puts a splash of vanilla in two mugs and a glug of milk in one of the two and a squeeze of honey in all three and then he puts the teabags in and then he adds a spoon to each for stirring and just then the kettle starts complaining so he fills them all up with water and then detours back into the closet, where Quentin is just pulling dry socks on, under the cuffs of his pajama bottoms; and Eliot digs out the bottle of Advil he keeps in his satchel. He comes back into the kitchen, with Quentin just behind him: Eliot rattles the Advil bottle at his mom, and then sets it on the corner of the desk: "For your head," he explains; and then goes back over to the mugs on the corner of the counter and then.

Realizing—

—he freezes.

His heart thumps. Thumps. Thumps: he's still wearing—his boots. His coat, just unbuttoned; his scarf open but not off; and here he is doing his busy-bee best to—and he looks up, half-unwillingly; to meet Rachel's wide dark eyes: pits, in her pale bloodless face; above her stretched-thin, curved-down mouth. So Eliot looks at Quentin, instead: standing just by the edge of the hallway wall with his sleeves pulled over his knuckles, shifting, awkwardly, as he glances between them.

"I, um." Eliot laughs, and picks up the cup with milk, and hands it to Quentin. "I didn't stir it," he says, because Quentin always likes to; and Quentin nods, and gives him a tiny, hesitant smile; so Eliot—

There are two mugs left, so—so Eliot picks up the one with no vanilla. Stepping back, turning to—

—to the window, of course. To look out.

"I was, um. I was wondering," Rachel says, behind him. Clears her throat. Eliot stirs his tea. Sips it. Looking out at the alley, which—he can't even really see, through the whirling endless drive of the snow. "Would you two mind if I—monopolized the bathroom, for a bit?" Rachel asks. "I'm just—I'd really like a bath, if that's okay." She laughs: awkwardly, of course. "To warm up," she says, behind Eliot, where he can't see.

"It's okay with me," Quentin says. "El?"

Eliot swallows. Nods, and then—turns, scraping a hand through his hair. "Yeah, it's fine," he says; and then—laughs. Awkwardly. Of course. They're both just—fucking hilarious, aren't they? There're eucalyptus bath salts in the cupboard, but—but he can't—he can't _do_ that again, he can't—be that _person_ with her—he sets his mug down next to the sink and digs his cigarettes out, instead. "I'm just going to—," he says; and motions: Quentin nods, so Eliot steps out onto the landing.

Lights up.

He's maybe two drags down when Quentin comes out: bundled up in his hoodie and his coat again, over his pajamas: the cuffs tucked into Eliot's hideous tasseled Uggs.

"Sorry," Eliot says; and then—laughs. 

It comes out awkward again. Of course. Of course Eliot is—here, being awkward, because of his mother, _yet again_: around _Quentin_, of all people, Jesus fucking Christ.

"It's okay," Quentin says, very quietly. "What was it?" he asks, lifting his chin. Squinting, a little. 

"Oh, Christ, no, it's—." Eliot closes his eyes. Sighs. "It's stupid, probably," he says. 

Swallowing.

"Does it feel stupid?" Quentin asks, quiet; and Eliot takes a long, slow breath.

Lets it out.

"I just—I used to. Try to—take care of her, and stuff," he explains. "Whatever." He shakes his head. "Just—_whatever_, it's—it was dumb when I was giving her my stuffed brachiosaurus when I was four and it's even dumber now, probably, I just."

He stops. Shakes his head, throat tight.

"Old habits," Quentin says, quiet; and Eliot laughs, and sketches out a deeply camp salute, with the fingers holding the cigarette: Quentin watches it, intent; and then.

Licks his lips.

He looks back up at Eliot's face. "How bad is it that I want one of those?"

"Honey, I'd be worried if you _didn't_," Eliot says; and all of Quentin's dimples come out in reply. "I'm just not giving you one," Eliot says, "since you've already done the hard part," and then takes a long, orgasmically delicious drag.

"And someone's got to set a good example for the kids," Quentin prompts: and Eliot scrubs at his jaw. Heart—

"And someone," he agrees: fluttering. Fluttering. "has got to set a good example for the kids." Meeting Quentin's soft, smiling eyes. "Though, I mean—you definitely shouldn't have kids with someone who'll smoke around them," Eliot says. "It's bad for them, Quentin." But Quentin just tilts his head, looking up at him; so Eliot—caves, basically immediately: "So, like—if you're secretly pregnant or whatever you should probably tell me now," he says, "so I know I need to start quitting before February—"

"Well, I mean, you definitely shouldn't smoke around me if I'm pregnant," Quentin points out; and Eliot huffs.

Shaking his head, as he looks up at the third-floor landing.

"I'm not pregnant," Quentin offers, after a second. "And—if you're worried about that I think—uh, we need to talk about—a few things, so, you know. Actually—you _could_ give me a cigarette." Lip curling. "If," Quentin says, "you just weren't so strict with me."

"Mm." Eliot smokes. "Strict, huh?"

"It's for my own good," Quentin agrees, nodding.

Eliot watches him. "It is." Feeling—sharp all over: honed. Intent.

Quentin licks over his bottom lip again. Leaning back against the door. "What else're you going to do?" he asks. "For my own good?"; and Eliot.

Touches his own throat, thinking; as watching him, Quentin shivers.

Christ. It's not—Eliot wasn't, actually, thinking about sex. Not since—well. Not for a little while. But Quentin—Quentin is throwing him a lifeline, and Eliot can recognize it: a way for them to be—_okay_, with each other, _with_ each other and okay: out here on Eliot's fire escape in a snowstorm, not even touching.

"Every day you go without smoking while my mom's still here," Eliot says, finally. Coming closer. "I'll give you a prize."

Quentin's throat bobs. His cheeks—pinking up, a bit. "What kind of prize?" he asks, low. His chin lifting—up, as Eliot gets closer: because Quentin's too determined, _always_, to stop looking him in the eye.

Eliot takes a drag. Exhales, turning away, to the side: Quentin makes a tiny, hot yearning sound. 

"Oh," Eliot says. "I think good boys should get to pick their own prizes. Don't you?"

He looks back down at Quentin's face: very red, now. That wild, hectic flush.

"Blindfold and a gravity blanket while you fuck my mouth," Quentin says: and then—he shivers, all over: squeezing his eyes tight shut.

"Hm." Eliot leans away, to stub his cigarette out, on the brick. "On your back, on your stomach, or on your knees?" he asks, and presses—_in_: sliding his knee in between Quentin's soft thighs, burning-hot through his pajamas.

"Christ," Quentin gasps; and then puts his face down, against Eliot's shoulder. "It's—too cold to screw out here right now, right?" Quentin asks, muffled.

"Yep": a sharp hot plosive, on the "P." "You didn't answer my question."

"Christ, El, I—fuck, can we. Table that, for now? Jesus, I'm already so—_fuck_, El, _feel_": dragging Eliot's hand down to his dick, tenting out his bottoms, hot and stiff and getting stiffer and hotter inside the cup of Eliot's hand.

"Yeah," Eliot murmurs. "Yeah, I feel it."

"God, I want—your bare fucking fingers," Quentin says, thick; and then turns his face up, looping his arms around Eliot's neck: giving him a slow, wet, and extremely thorough kiss: breathing in through his mouth.

"You're just trying to get some secondhand nicotine, aren't you?" Eliot says, soft; and Quentin squeezes his shoulders. Huffs a laugh.

"Mostly I'm just trying to get a fucking _orgasm_," Quentin says; and then drops his head back against the door, and sighs. "And—and _you_, you know."

"Yeah." Eliot fits his hand around Quentin's warm throat. "I know, baby. You got me": Holding him, gentle, as Quentin closes his eyes. 

Eliot strokes his jaw: scratchy. The hot flushed edge of his cheek. Feeling—_okay_, he thinks, maybe: maybe for the first time all day.

"I'm pretty sure Orla and Patrick are still out of town," Eliot says. Soft. "Want me to break in?" Quentin laughs; and Eliot shakes his head. "Seriously." Thumbing over his jaw. "I can do good work in someone else's shower," Eliot reminds him; and Quentin flushes a bright, highly gratifying scarlet.

"I didn't exactly forget," he says; and then looks up at Eliot. "Ask me again on Saturday," he says; and Eliot—laughs.

"God, I _hope_ she's not still here on Saturday," he says, and then—

Eliot can feel his mouth twisting. He pulls back: touches Quentin's cheek, once; then goes to stick the butt of his cigarette into the coffee can under Orla and Patrick's depressingly neglected charcoal grill.

When he turns back, Quentin's mouth is curled up at the corner. "If she is, I want it on Orla and Patrick's living room floor, hard as you can, hands and knees," he says; and then reaches out to tangle his fingers up with Eliot's, reeling Eliot back within reach.

"I'll add a spanking for every minute you can take it without creaming their rug," Eliot agrees; and Quentin presses his face to Eliot's shoulder.

"You should. Leave your, uh. Like—leave your pants on or something," Quentin says, clumsy, "maybe?"

Eliot tugs at his hair, gentle: "I'd keep on everything—vest and shoes too," Eliot says, "if you wanted"; and against him, Quentin. Shivers.

Shoulders hunching, as he rubs his mouth against Eliot's shirt.

"What 'bout—the tie," Quentin asks, muffled; and Eliot strokes his hand through his hair.

"Oh, baby," he sighs: so, so fucking fond of him: "needing to gag you would be the only reason I'd take off the tie."

He tips Quentin's chin up. Kisses—his mouth, one burning-hot cheek: "You want me to jimmy the lock?" Eliot asks. "Right now? Or—um. We could—. Or," Eliot says, careful, "if you wanted, we could just go back into the kitchen. And—and you could show me those un-label-able mystery photographs, maybe. Your call."

Quentin takes a long, deep breath: slow. 

"Maybe I could help," Eliot says, quiet.

"You always do," Quentin says; and then tips his chin up, blinking. "I think—if I'm going to be living across the hall from the mysterious Orla and Patrick in six months, maybe—let's go for the photos? if we can stand it?" He fidgets. "I mean," he says. "_You_ have a living room rug, don't you. For. Later."

A fishhook, Eliot thinks. Right—right in the meat of him.

"Yeah," he says. Gravelly. "I do." He takes a breath. "I've already got a gravity blanket, too": and Quentin meets his eyes.

"Okay," Quentin says, after a second. "So, like—not having any bloodflow to my brain, that's fun and all, but—the warming spell I stuck on the tea only lasts for like fifteen minutes, so—"

"Yeah—God, totally." Eliot—straightens. Shoulders back. "I mean—I, personally, am fucking _desperate_ for a cup of chamomile tea"; which makes Quentin smile at him, even if it _is_ a little strained, at the edges.

Besides. It _is_ too cold outside to fuck, probably: and Eliot—is not. Going to keep—_thinking_ about it, not while he's hanging up his coat and taking off his boots, not listening to the water slosh, quiet, in the bathtub; or coming back into the kitchen to pull a chair up next to Quentin's hip, while Quentin is standing up to lay out a haphazard grid of black and white photos across the table, because the clock is still taking up most of the desk. There's an untidy little heap of pink Post-Its, too: Eliot picks the top one up. _Porter-Wildes:_, it says, in Quentin's loopy printing; and then, bulleted: _Beth (b. 1888), Arthur (b. 188?), William (b. 188?, d. 189?-190?)_. The next one down says _Coldwaters_ and has seven—Jesus, seven?—bullets, but only five—no, four—names: Matthew (b. 188?), Albert (b. 187?-188?), Sarah (b. 188?), Thomas (b. 188?), with the date crossed out, and beside which Quentin's written _(no - older [??] 186?-187? [???])_, and then written, _COUSIN!_ and crossed the whole _thing_ out; followed by the last three bullets: Henry (b. 188?), (blank), (blank). The third one—

"Oh, you're mapping out the Pratts, too?" Eliot asks, looking up; and Quentin sighs.

"Yeah, there are a million of them, and—I'm not saying they're, like, in the way, or something, like—they're family friends, they're neighbors, isn't having a community great, blah blah blah," Quentin says, "but they're also—_blond_, and basically _exactly_ the same age as Beth and her brothers, so—for this specific situation, in which I am—trying to label these assholes in these photos, _they are also totally and completely in the way_": looking down with a stubborn, irritated face; and Eliot likes it so much that he sort of _has_ to reach up, and catch Quentin around the hips: squeezing him—the cold still clinging to his PJ bottoms—against Eliot's side.

"Okay," Eliot says. "So—talk me through it."

"Okay," Quentin says, and then—leans over, and Christ, the table would be just the right height for Eliot to—Jesus. _Stop_ it. "So, look. There's this photo, with—all of them, I think," he says, passing it to Eliot; so Eliot duly regards a slightly smudgy herd of about fifteen people all standing around on the steps of— "That was Matthew's dad's house, in Albany," Quentin explains. "My dad took me, when I was like—seven, or something. It's a total wreck, now, but I still recognized it. And—before you get weird about it—it's not like anyone ever wrote down an itemized list of Coldwaters and birthdates, or whatever, but as best I can tell from references in the letters, Matthew _was_ the youngest, as in sixth kid and fifth boy, so like—even if Albert hadn't basically lost everything, in '29, Matthew wasn't ever going to inherit much of anything." Quentin taps the photo, right near the center: a straight-spined dark-haired young man in wire-rimmed glasses, standing next to a Ted clone with a handlebar moustache: "Albert," Quentin says. "Pretty sure, anyway. The Coldwaters are easy, right?"

"That hair," Eliot agrees. He looks up. "Hey. How dark does your beard come in again?"

Quentin raises an eyebrow. "You hate my beard."

"I mean—I just don't remember," Eliot says, "but if I could just—," and then reaches up to hook a finger in Quentin's PJ elastic—

"Oh my God, stop it," Quentin says, laughing, and slaps his hand away. "Your mom will _one hundred percent_ come in, if you're checking out my manscaping in the kitchen."

"Q, you have never in your life 'scaped anything," Eliot reminds him, "man or otherwise."

"Well, I mean—I did shave my legs, once, in college," Quentin says. "But point taken. Anyway—"

"Wait, no, uh-uh," Eliot says. "You can't just—_you_, shaved your _legs_—"

"Yes, I shaved my legs," Quentin says. "Once. For a Halloween costume. And yes, if you help me with this, I'll try to find you a picture, okay? Just—"

Eliot shifts, a little. "Are you going to tell me what the costume was?"

Quentin squints down at him. "Oh," he says, after a second. "I think I'm going to make that your prize."

"I'm going to be so good," Eliot promises; and then squeezes Quentin's hip. "I won't even ask if it involved stockings." He taps the dude in the glasses. "So," he says. "Albert."

"Yeah," Quentin says. "That's _probably_ Albert, with their dad—Albert was the oldest. He was the one that Adam was really interested in, actually—he was a total disaster, and he had this super crazy life, Adam had all these newspaper clippings about times when Albert had crashed his yacht or whatever": Quentin waves a hand. "Anyway—Adam wrote just—pages and pages and pages of notes, trying to reconstruct why Albert was such a trainwreck—Adam definitely thought he was gay, for one thing": Eliot's pulse hops, but Quentin's just—still talking: "which, I mean, just between us?" Looking down: Eliot nods. "I'm pretty sure Albert _was_ gay," Quentin says, "which couldn't've been a walk in the park, back in nineteen oh whatever, but like—it's pretty obvious that Albert wasn't a disaster because he was gay, he was a _disaster_ because he had _loads and loads of money_, so he kept being able to buy himself out of trouble—right up until he couldn't." Quentin sighs, and leans in against Eliot: while Eliot squeezes him around the legs. 

"Did he, like." Swallowing. "Get arrested, or something?"

"Oh, yeah, all the time," Quentin says, dismissive; and then— "Oh." Shifting. "You meant—no, not for being gay. He got arrested for—public drunkenness, or disturbing the peace, stuff like that—like, he got caught smuggling liquor in during prohibition _nine times_, and—he got shot, once. In the arm. By a member of the Jewish mob." 

"I—wow," Eliot says. Feeling—slightly faint. "This—does not strongly remind me of—_either_ you or Ted, just. Are you _sure_ he was a Coldwater?"

"Are you impugning my great-great-great-grandmother's honor?" Quentin asks, dimpling a little. 

"I would never," Eliot says, very seriously; and Quentin laughs.

"Well—I mean, the photo's pretty good evidence that he _was_ a Coldwater," Quentin says, sliding his finger one startling family resemblance to the right, to tap Handlebar Moustache: he's not wrong. Though—that is quite the moustache. Eliot wonders if he could convince Quentin to grow one of those; and then, more importantly, _shave it off_, once Eliot'd had a chance to take a ride. "But—I think he's so fucking fascinating _because_ everyone else in the family was, like, career military, or total engineering nerd," Quentin says, "just—profoundly boring, and then here's this, like, _super_ over-the-top drama magnet, losing thousands of dollars in a card game on Friday morning and accidentally buying a race horse on Sunday night."

Eliot looks up. "How do you accidentally buy a race horse?"

"That," Quentin says, very seriously, "is a _very good question_."

Eliot grins, tipping his head, to rub his scalp against Quentin's warm ribs.

"Anyway," Quentin says, sliding the picture to one side. "He was ridiculous. Adam's introduction to the book was basically just a straight-up recounting of this story about this one time that Albert threw a party and placed an ad in the paper inviting every prostitute in the city—the party was apparently a big hit, but half the attendees had to get bailed out in the morning and the scandal over having accepted the ad in the first place almost drove the _Post_ out of business." He sighs. "It was the only part of the book Adam had actually finished," he says, glum.

Eliot looks down at the photo again. "Well, I mean." Those nerdy fucking glasses. Proper posture for days: "Appearances can be deceiving, I guess?" he says, after a second.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Quentin says, bending down. "He looks like—a librarian, or something. Which is sort of why—so there's this guy, too": another dark-haired youth, down a step and over, his face blurred as he turns toward the blond boy on his right: the camera catching them at just the wrong moment. "And I can't actually tell how old either of them is," Quentin explains. "Albert was the oldest, but I think he and Henry were only about a year apart—I mean, they were _all_ super close in age, even Matthew, you know? So—that could be Henry, but it also could be Albert, buuut—"

"—but this totally looks like the sort of photo where you put the oldest next to Dad," Eliot says; and Quentin says, "Yeah, exactly. And—there's this photo, too": reaching out for a formal-looking studio portrait, probably a decade later: two dark-haired men, probably both somewhere in their thirties: on the left, the older of the two wearing those same wire-rimmed glasses, a sprinkling of grey, just at his temples. On the right: a funhouse mirror version of Quentin's chocolatey brown eyes: sharp, in a stern eagle-ish version of his face, set above—implausibly—an army uniform.

Eliot shifts.

"I thought Ted said your family was all navy and air force," he says. After a second.

"Well, not Henry, I guess?" Quentin rubs at the back of his neck. "I mean, I didn't even realize Henry'd been in the military at all, but—it makes sense. Like, the weird part is probably that Albert _wasn't_, if you think about it? I mean." He huffs. "Everyone else fought. I mean—half of them didn't come home, it was—a major world war, it wasn't like it was—_optional_, or something."

Eliot licks his bottom lip. "I think if you have enough money, a lot of things are optional," he points out; and Quentin sighs.

"Yeah, I know," he says. "_But_." 

Eliot turns, to press a kiss to his side.

Above him, Quentin scrapes a hand through his own hair: antsy, shifting. "Anyway," he says. "Whatever, I don't care, _I_ never met them, so—okay. Coldwaters, fine, whatever, they're—easy enough, for the most part": he taps the group photo again. "Their dad—whose name was Theodore, by the way—" Eliot squeezes— "and this is _probably_ Albert, and here's _probably_ Henry; and then there's these two": tapping a smiling dark-haired teenager, down front, with a bunch of beaming blonds; and then a kid, sitting on the steps beside a fair-haired young man: very handsome, significantly older; lounging back, louche and stylish. The dark-haired boy is copying the man's posture so perfectly that it can't be anything other than deliberate, but it looks—_very_ different, on someone who's probably in his early twenties, and someone who's more like fourteen.

"A serious case of hero worship, I see," Eliot says: laughing, a little. "Is that—" He squints. "Which one's Matthew?"

"Sort of the ten thousand dollar question," Quentin says. "Age-wise, I think it has to be this one": tapping the kid. "Because—this has to be their other brother, right?": sliding across to a very slightly older boy, with Quentin's straight brown hair and dimples. Eliot nods. "But—look at Beth," Quentin says, sliding back to the left: across the stylish blond; past his underage mimic; to a very pretty girl with blonde waves and dimples, her arm looped through the elbow of a fair-haired boy of about the same age. There're only two women in the photograph under thirty, and that one is—very definitively—Beth. "If that _is_ Matthew, sitting on the step behind her," Quentin says, "she definitely doesn't seem to have much time for him, does she?" He hesitates, for a second; then mutters, "Not exactly a romance for the ages."

It's true. "Yeah," Eliot says, very slowly, "but this is—how old are they?"

"Um—the back just says '1904'," Quentin says, flipping it to show him, then flipping it back. "So—Beth would've been 15 or 16. I think Matthew's about the same age?"

Eliot squints down at the boy imitating his betters. "That kid's fifteen?" he says, very dubiously.

"Something like that, yeah," Quentin says. "And—if you don't buy it, remind me to show you my tenth grade yearbook": very dry. "Not all of us were cool in high school."

Eliot looks up. "Baby, if you mean me and you, exactly none of us were cool in high school": Quentin snorts. "So—okay," Eliot says. "I just meant—it's not a great time for a lot of people. Maybe they got close again later."

"Maybe," Quentin says, very dubiously; and Eliot sighs.

"All right, fine," he says. "Look. Let's just say—Matthew's fifteen, and tragic—well, _been there_": reaching for the pad of Post-Its. A pen. He pulls off the top four or five stickies and casts Broadhead's Separation (smelling half-rotted peaches; beeswax), to split them into something more like flags: "Huh," Quentin says. "I never thought to do that."

"Yeah, but that's because you steal all your office supplies from Julia," Eliot reminds him; and then pulls off a sticky, while Quentin leans over to bite his ear. 

"Mm." Quentin hums. "Dram—buie."

Eliot turns, pen stopped halfway through writing: _Matth—_. "What?" 

"Your magic," Quentin says, "s'like—": and then takes a huge, deep breath. "Drambuie and matches," he explains; and then licks—shivery and good—at the hinge Eliot's jaw.

_Honestly_. "You just miss smoking." _—tthew Coldwater_, Eliot finishes writing. "Also, I thought we were labeling the photos so we _didn't_ wind up pounding it out in the kitchen," he adds; and then sticks the flag to the vicariously humiliating try-hard and starts writing _Beth Porter-Wilde_ on another; while Quentin makes a small, disappointed noise against Eliot's cheek.

"I mean, I do sort of miss smoking," Quentin agrees. "But—you've always tasted good." 

Eliot pulls away, to give him a Look™; and then—well, a kiss; but then he pulls back enough again to reprise the Look™, because—priorities. 

Quentin just grins at him, then pulls the sticky off the pad and waves it at Eliot's face; so Eliot snatches it back, and sticks it to the pretty blonde at the front of the photo. 

"I was _thinking_," Eliot says, pointed, "that this way we can move them, if we need to."

Quentin nods. Expression serious. He's still halfway to sitting in Eliot's lap. "That," Quentin says, "is a really good idea."

So. So—

So Eliot decides to ignore Quentin's patent trolling, for the time being; so they can label the rest of the Coldwaters: _Albert Coldwater_, _Henry Coldwater_, _Thing 1 Coldwater_ on the dark-haired teen in the group with Beth, down front; and _Thing 2 Coldwater_ on the boy with the dimples and the light brown hair. The only sister, just-younger than Albert: also easy; a _Sarah Coldwater_ sticky on the young-woman-who-isn't-Beth: with brown hair like Thing 2, standing on the other side of their father, who gets a _Theodore Coldwater (1.0)_ sticky, too. That leaves, then, just the endless sea of blonds: in there, somewhere, Beth's older brother Arthur, and then all those Pratts—"Wait, four Pratts?" Eliot asks, double-checking; "Yeah," Quentin says, "I think it's—well, Walter, obviously. Um—his oldest brother was called—" checking his Post-It— "Frederick, and then—I'm pretty sure the Samuel in the letters is Walter's brother, too, and then fourth—uh—"; "William?" Eliot asks, flipping through the rest of Quentin's Post-Its; but Quentin shakes his head, and takes them back. "No, I think William is Beth's brother," he says; and Eliot cries, "The fuck, Q? I thought her brother was named Arthur."

"Well—yeah," Quentin says. "He was. She had two. One died, remember? So—he's not in the photo"; and Eliot buries his face in his hands.

Twenty minutes later they've moved all the stickies around about seventeen times, but there's still no way to make it work out. "Look," Eliot says. "Four Pratts, right? Four boys. And then Arthur Porter-Wilde. But—I hate to break it to you, Q, but there are _six_ blond boys in this photo": he holds it up. Shakes it. "So—this kid has _got_ to be William Porter-Wilde. There's just—no one else, is there?"; and Quentin. 

Frowns.

"I don't know," he says, very slowly. "But—that can't be William Porter-Wilde. We have—all of creepy Beth's family portraits, remember? _In memoriam_. And—she was _younger_ in those."

"Well, then, maybe the photo's haunted," Eliot counters; and then—he realizes. Quentin standing still beside him, not saying a thing.

Eliot rubs at his forehead, and then—wraps an arm around him. Squeezes Quentin, both sides. 

"Oh good, more ghosts," Quentin says, after a second. "Just what the family—"

His voice cracks; and Eliot swallows. Turns, to kiss—Quentin's armpit, since—with Quentin standing next to him, that's. About what's in easy reach.

"Hey," Eliot says. Quiet; and Quentin shakes his head. _I didn't mean it like that_, Eliot thinks; but—he did. "Come here for a sec, hm?" Eliot asks. Petting up Quentin's thigh—Quentin's ass; and Quentin—nods, still not quite looking at him, and then. Swings. His knee over.

Eliot's thighs.

Settling, as Eliot pets at his hip.

"I like your family," Eliot says, quiet. "Ghosts and all": and Quentin huffs, a little; and puts his hands up. Flat on Eliot's shoulders. 

"You want to be able to tell stories about your wacky Prohibition-era booze-running in-laws," Quentin says, after a second; and if it comes out strained—. Well.

"Desperately," Eliot agrees. Looping his hands together, in the small of Quentin's back; and Quentin tips his chin down.

They kiss.

"But I like the rest of them too, you know," Eliot says, after a minute. "The—retro goth rich girl and the weird hippie historian and the plane-obsessed engineering manager and—you know, the clock-making-and-fixing tinkery magicians, I'm. Pretty fucking fond of them, too."

Quentin smiles: a sharp, painful thing. "Boring," he observes; and Eliot says, "I think—maybe I like boring, baby"; and Quentin takes a breath.

"Shh," Quentin says, after a second. "That's so uncool—kiss me again."

So Eliot tips his chin up: a mirror; obedient.

Quentin's hands.

"I sort of—wonder," Quentin says. After a minute. "How they got there."

Eliot rubs—his cheek, against—. "How they got where?" Turns his face to press a kiss, delicate, against Quentin's knobby knuckles; and when he lifts his mouth up again, Quentin slides his hand around the back of Eliot's neck.

"Oh, you know." Squeezes. "Like—from 'oh, our families are best buds and we play together', to like—married, or whatever."

_Married, or whatever_: oh, Q. 

"Is it really that weird?" Eliot asks. "I mean—was it weird _then_, do you think? Like—it seems pretty conventional, in a lot of ways."

"Yeah, but—" Quentin shrugs. "I mean—I don't think _Beth_ was all that conventional. I mean, she was a _photographer_, from when she was—what? Twelve? Thirteen? And—that was probably a big fucking deal, in 1900, and—and she wrote, too, like—she always wrote a story for Matthew. Every letter I've found to him: all the way through Brakebills. During the war. And—and they're _good_, she was a good writer. And God, I mean, all the letters are—totally out of order, and—there's so fucking _many_ of them, so, like—I know I'm not exactly. Seeing _the whole thing_, or whatever, but—here you've got. This super interesting, super creative young woman—with money, access, talent, _privilege_, and—she decides to marry a boy she's known since she was, like, six, or whatever? _Why?_ I mean—it's not like Matthew was this great catch—like, no offense to magic, or whatever, but—he was just. Some guy. Decent education. Handy with a screwdriver. But—he wasn't rich," Quentin says: meaning it, because—well. Quentin. "Like—she totally could've done _way_ better."

Eliot pets at Quentin's back. "Maybe," he says: as gently as he can, "she just—fell in love with him"; and Quentin sighs. 

Rubs at his face. 

Eliot's heart—. "Or maybe," he says: —fluttering; and then stops.

Swallows.

"Maybe what?" Quentin asks, after a minute.

"Maybe—maybe he just didn't ask her to stop being Beth Porter-Wilde," Eliot says, after a second, "and she didn't ask him—"; and then.

He stops again. Feeling—

—he doesn't know. 

He doesn't know.

Above him, looking down: Quentin is watching him. His face—

"You think—you think Beth knew, don't you," Quentin says, after a second. "About Brakebills. I mean—like. You think she knew what Brakebills was. Is. What Brakebills _means_"; and Eliot sighs.

"God, Q, I have—no idea." He sighs, again. "I just—I know we're—not _supposed_ to tell people, but—you told your dad, you know? And—I don't know, honestly, what it would be like to be, like, writing to you about your creamy thighs from my magic college that you hadn't been invited to, but—I think it'd be—fucking _impossible_, for me, to love you, and not—_share_ that with you." 

He swallows, convulsive: his throat—fucking _excruciating_; and Quentin ducks down. Kisses the corner of Eliot's mouth; and then.

Rests. 

Just there. Just—breathing, gentle, against Eliot's skin.

After a second, Quentin—laughs. "I guess I should probably—wonder about us, too. If I'm going to bother"; and Eliot leans back, blinking.

"About us what?"

"Like." Quentin lets go of Eliot's shoulder long enough to try—and fail—to push his own hair out of his face. "How _we_ got here," Quentin is explaining. "I mean—I feel like—in the grand scheme of things, we are at least as implausible as—childhood buddies deciding to get hitched, or whatever."

Eliot hesitates. "Implausible how?"

Quentin's gaze slides—down. Away. "Oh, you know." He's hunching up; and very obviously trying not to: "Going from—'he's my friend's deeply neurotic ill-advised former hookup' to—talking about maybe spending the rest of our lives together," Quentin says; and then huffs. "Or," he says, "whatever."

Eliot—slides his hands down. His heart—beating. 

Beating.

"I don't know, man, this 'or whatever,' that sounds pretty intense," Eliot says, after a second; and then takes a breath. "Q—we are. Like—that whole. Spending the rest of our lives together thing," he says: voice—scraping. "That is still. A thing we're talking about, right?"; and Quentin lifts his head up, blinking. 

"You mean—"

Quentin stops. His dark, dark eyes.

"Like, I'm pretty, uh." Eliot laughs. "I don't refinish bookshelves for just anybody, baby": and Quentin licks his bottom lip.

"No," he says, quiet. "I know." He tugs the back of Eliot's hair. "Or—like," Quentin says, low and earnest, "joke about. Kids, or whatever, either. Right?"; and Eliot. 

Shakes his head.

In his lap, Quentin nods. Takes a breath. "I'm—very, very far from—backing away from—any of that," he says: and then. Blushes. "Like—_so_ far away, you—I can't even tell you, I—just. _That_. Is still. _Exactly_ what I—." 

He stops, sort of: his mouth still moving, no sound; and Eliot winds his hand up in the back of Quentin's thermal and _pulls_: half-steadying, half-warning; because—because the last time they'd gone there it'd ended with about four hours of Eliot telling Quentin he was going to put a baby in him and they'd both gotten incredibly dehydrated and the whole thing had just been—really, really embarrassing. In retrospect.

"I, uh—me too," Eliot says; and then laughs, as Quentin shifts in his lap. "You know that, right?" Eliot asks; and Quentin nods. Nods. _Nods_—still fucking—_squirming_ and Eliot—straightens. Puts his shoulders back, core strong: "Let's change the subject," he says; and Quentin laughs, too: scrubbing at his face.

"Probably wise," he says; and then.

Sighs. 

Eliot rubs at his back, through his thermal.

"I more meant," Quentin says, "like—I've never totally. _Got_ it, you know? Like—your side of it. Like, it seemed."

He stops, for a second. Clears his throat.

"At first it seemed like—there was, like, fantasy-Quentin, for you," Quentin says, after a second. "And—God, like, real-Quentin had never been—anywhere _near_ that interesting, to—anybody, _ever_, so like—he was _totally_ on board with you—wanting to just. Spend all this _time_ on him," Quentin says; and then. Laughs. "On him, in him, under him—"

"Yeah," Eliot says, quiet; and Quentin nods.

"But, like—I know this is dumb," Quentin says; and then—laughs. "But—it seemed like—it came out of fucking _nowhere_," he says: scratchy. "Like—I'd worked—really, really fucking hard, to try to be—_normal_ around you, and not—fall all over my feelings, or whatever, but then—God. Do you even—_remember_, um. That party, after Kady finally dropped out, and she threw herself that 'Fuck you Brakebills' apartment-warming?"

"Not very well," Eliot says; and then—touches. One finger, and then the next: Quentin's vertebrae; counting one, two. Three. "But—well enough, probably," Eliot admits. Quiet. "To—I, I mean. I think I remember what you're talking about."

It had been—April, probably. Almost the end of second year—Eliot's second year. Quentin's first. And after Kady had vanished for two days, then come back for the sole purpose of telling Fogg _exactly_ what she thought about being informed that her second-year financial aid was contingent on her coming back from summer vacation early to be on hand to escort entrance-exam failures to their compulsory mind-wipes, Kady'd refused to take Fogg's incredibly condescending offer to pay for her Uber; and then opened _an actual fucking portal_, from the middle of the fucking _Cottage_, and then turned around and told Todd she'd buy him a slice of pizza if he started stacking her shit up on her new apartment's kitchen counter. So—so they'd all gotten into it: for pizza delivery and beer from the bodega and the vodka and limes that constituted the entire current contents of Kady's new microscopic fridge and freezer. It had been—two weeks, or something, before the end of the semester; but the whole thing had had taken on the kind of hectic revelry that had made it feel like after finals, the start of summer; and—somewhere in there, Quentin (carrying an open box of candles and drug paraphernalia) had trotted past Eliot (lounging with Margo while they built a honeycomb—just a little one—to magically hang Kady's wall art); and on impulse Eliot had reached an arm out to catch Quentin and pull him—very tipsy, warm and pliable—into his lap on Kady's sofa. _Hi_, Quentin'd said, beaming down at him; and Eliot had said, _What d'you think, Q, for our place? Short commute or good schools?_

"I thought it was a joke, at first," Quentin says. 

"It wasn't," Eliot says. It—it had been, until it'd actually—come out of him; and then. 

It wasn't.

Quentin nods. "You should've seen Margo's face," he says; and then laughs.

"I was looking at yours," Eliot says, throat tight; and in his lap, Quentin takes a deep, slow breath; and closes his eyes.

Bending down, to press their foreheads together.

"I thought—." Voice scratchy. Quentin clears his throat. "Until then I'd sort of thought—you were just." His back is tense; curving, just, under Eliot's hand: Eliot rubs it, gentle: wanting to—to make it—_easier_ for him— "Having fun," Quentin explains, "with me"; and Eliot.

Swallows.

"It was—a fantasy," Eliot explains, finally. When he thinks he can get the words out; and then. He closes his eyes, for a moment; and then leans up to kiss Quentin's cheek. 

"Like," Quentin echoes. 

His mouth.

"Like—yes, okay." Eliot shifts. "Like maybe—maybe you did start out as. I don't know, my friend's ill-advised former hookup, or—or something, I'm not even sure she was my friend yet, honestly." He laughs, achy. "Like—she was hypercompetent and I liked that and a bitch and I liked that too, but—she barely fucking _tolerated_ me, then, so—okay, maybe—I was sort of. Entertained by her, and—and then there's—this other person," Eliot explains, "who—and. And I did _like_ you, you know. I mean—I felt like Julia wanted—a fucking _résumé_, or something, before I was allowed to be your friend, but—I liked you, you were hot, you were awkward, it was delicious, so like—it's not like. You were _Alice's_, in my mind, or something, it was more like—it seemed like. That whole situation just seemed—so totally fucking shitty, for you, like it had gone—so fucking bad, _so_ fucking fast, and—and I felt like—so here's this hot awkward nerd, who also—sort of slept with a girl I know, which—is how I make a lot of my friends, honestly, but—but it feels different," Eliot says: throat sore, "for some reason, with him. So—first he was—that, maybe, but—but then he was just—my friend." Looking up at—at Quentin's lovely, vulnerable face. "And then," Eliot says, "then—somewhere in there I started to realize you were also, you know. A person I wanted to kiss a lot, like. Not—not exactly in the, like." Breathing in: careful. Careful. "Love 'em and leave 'em way, but—but. But—not _not_ that, either, because—because at the same time, while—while you were also turning into—a person who for some reason let me kiss him, I. I was—I _know_ that, that—somewhere in there, in—in my _fantasies_," Eliot explains, "in like—those deep dark secret thoughts you never show anyone. Somewhere. Deep down inside me, you know, you were—I mean, yes, there were also—a _lot_ of sweaty recreational activities": just to watch Quentin grin at him, cheeks pink; "But—there were also times, maybe. Where, oh, you know." He waves a hand. Feeling— "A whole—Park Slope apartment with a stroller and two French bulldogs featured largely, maybe": antsy. "But like—so did, um." 

Eliot stops. He can't think, honestly. He laughs, a little. 

"Winning an Oscar?" Quentin hazards.

"Oh, please, no—go Tony or go home," Eliot says, waving a hand; and Quentin leans down. Presses their mouths together, smiling; as Eliot wraps his arms around Quentin's back.

His heart—

"But—yeah," Eliot says. Pulling—back, barely: God, Quentin's face: always. "It was—like that." _Always_. "And then—then at Kady's, I—I said that," Eliot says, unsteady, "half a joke at least, and I saw your face, and I—I was. I was just. Less sure, after that, you know?" 

He swallows. 

"Less sure," Quentin echoes. His eyes—

"Yeah." Eliot nods. Nods. "Just—a _lot_ less sure," he says, rough. "That—that it was a fantasy."

Quentin's mouth twists. Head tilting, as he brushes his knuckles up under Eliot's chin. Cups Eliot's jaw; and then—

—holds it, very gentle, while they kiss.

After. A minute. Quentin pulls back. His hand—settling, just at the hinge of Eliot's shoulder. His thumb still resting on Eliot's throat. 

Dark-eyed pink-mouthed, Quentin asks, "Did Rachel teach you how to draw?"

And Eliot—

—blinks. 

Up at—at Quentin, his serious face. His dark eyes. Wondering where—_that_ particular conversational boomerang is coming from—

"I mean—." Quentin shrugs. "She's—she's really artistic, isn't she?" Looking down. Obviously—embarrassed, Eliot thinks, a little bit. "When we were out, today," Quentin explains, "it was sort of—like, when you took me to that, um. That—book museum, or whatever, last year": and Eliot has to bite his tongue, a bit, to keep himself from correcting that it was the Center for Book Arts, _Quentin_, thank you very much: because—Quentin had still been. In a pretty bad way, that November. So. So it had been—just. Just a way of getting him—off campus, out of Jersey, away from the hospital, just—just for a few fucking hours, _Christ_: and it'd seemed like the kind of thing he'd like; so they'd gone around the current exhibits; and Quentin had had a very serious and informative conversation with a tall middle-aged lesbian about the bookbinding workshops; and when they'd left they'd gone out for bahn mi for lunch; and then Quentin had fallen asleep on Eliot's shoulder in the Lyft on the, like, five-minute ride, back to the portals: limp, exhausted, grey-faced. "Like—what do I know, about painting," Quentin says: in Eliot's lap, in Chicago, thirteen months later: "I don't even know—how to _look_ at it," he says, and then laughs. "But—when you're with me, _talking_ to me about it, it's like—like you become my telescope, or something, and then—." 

He shrugs. Pink-cheeked, as he fiddles with ends of Eliot's hair.

"Then," Quentin says, "I can see."

Eliot swallows. Petting—_up_—

"Anyway." Quentin clears his throat. "I—it was sort of like that, having her—explain Art! to me, you know, like—capital A. Exclamation point. Like—I probably would've." He takes a breath. "Just—been super overwhelmed, and intimidated, and like—all these paintings, they were all—they seemed. Sort of—intense? which—I mean, they're just paintings, I know that, but—but Rachel just—she kept nudging me to look at—these little _parts_ of things, you know? Instead of—trying to take—the whole fucking thing into my brain, and—and I could actually—_handle_ it, you know? With her helping me."

He ducks his head. Not quite meeting—

"Fuseli is always pretty intense," Eliot says, after a second. "For everyone, I think": and Quentin's shoulders—loosening, a little. As he nods.

Eliot pets Quentin's back. Up. Down. Up.

"I don't remember, actually," Eliot says. "If she taught me. But—I know I did draw with her a lot, when I was little." He shifts: pulling Quentin—closer, even though— "But it was more like—just, the farmhouse was really really old," he explains, "and the heating was pretty shitty," looping his arms around Quentin's back: "and it didn't even _have_ A/C, so—" 

He stops. Feeling—prickling, all over. Like—like a porcupine, or something, that wants to curl up into a ball. 

"The kitchen," Eliot says, "was always—the nicest part of the house. Like, the most comfortable, I mean." 

Quentin is just—watching him. Eyes serious, and dark. 

"It was—there was this—God, it was ancient," Eliot explains. "This hideous old wood-burning stove, stuck in the corner of the kitchen, and like—no one had used it for actual cooking in ages, I don't think, but—but in the winter, she'd fire it up while I was still at school. And—"

Even just—remembering it. Makes him feel—but—but Quentin's hand. Steady. Solid. Resting on the back of his neck; as Eliot.

Bends.

Towards him. 

And Quentin leans forward, for an instant, to kiss the crown of his head.

"Christ, it's—nothing," Eliot says, finally. Blinking, at—at the jut of Quentin's collarbone, just under the stubble-rough column of his soft, soft throat. "It's just—when I got back," Eliot says, scraped up, "she'd let me stay in there with her. Where it was warmer. To like—do my homework, or whatever, while—while she made dinner." 

Above him, Quentin nods. Quiet; and Eliot takes a breath: steady, steadying.

Slow. 

"The thing is," Eliot says; and then laughs. "Even when it wasn't fucking—Antarctica levels of cold outside, the kitchen—I don't know, the whole house could get pretty hot in the summer, but—I never minded it so much, in there, probably because—I don't know." Feeling—tight, all over. Too small. "It always just felt like there was more _air_, or something, like—which. I mean, she kept all the windows open, yeah, which—we didn't, mostly, because—uh, it. Made things get dirty, so, uh—"

He stops. Feeling—; even while Quentin—nods, quiet. Rubbing, gentle, at the back of Eliot's hair.

"But the kitchen," Eliot says. Thick. "She was the only person who ever really, like—spent time in there." And then—realizing— "I mean—" 

"I know," Quentin says, very quietly. "It's okay."

So Eliot—nods. "So," he says. Laughs. "It just—it always felt cooler, in there. In the summer."

"Yeah," Quentin says. Stroking. Gentle.

"Part of it was," Eliot says. "It was just—"

And.

And it _doesn't_ matter, does it. It probably—never mattered, in—in most ways; but—but it still. It still feels like—like pushing through half-set concrete, doesn't it: for Eliot to say, "There were. Trees." 

Not—not looking up. Not quite.

"Trees," Quentin echoes; and Eliot blinks his eyes closed, and—and doesn't open them, right away.

"Y—yeah": finally. _Pushing_: "There were—these trees." Against—against the _weight_ of it, just—crushing—_crushing_, in against his chest: "outside the window. Big, old trees, lots of shade. They were, um." Breathing in. Steady; careful. _Oxygen_, he thinks. A good thing. "There were three of them," he explains. Steady. Shoulders back: a reminder. Spine straight. "A plum tree," Eliot says, "which—the plums were awful, like, _super_ sour, and really tiny, she could only really use them for jam and it mostly wasn't worth it, and—well, the apples were okay," he admits. Rubbing a hand, shaky, at his face. "For cooking, at any rate," he says: tired. "I tried to eat one raw, once, when I was—five or six, I think, but it was—really _really_ sour, and—then I had diarrhea for, like, three days": which makes Quentin huff a little laugh, which is. Weirdly encouraging. "I think the third one was a peach," Eliot says: easier, somehow, with Quentin laughing at him; "but—I mean, thirteen years, we lived in that house, and that tree never once fucking fruited—it's just too cold, honestly," he explains, "in Indiana. So—so every year, there was this massive, massive scene, about those trees, because my mom really loved them, like—the blossoms, and the shade, because that was part of why the kitchen stayed so cool, you know?" Quentin nods, even while Eliot's still explaining: "in the summer: these really big, solid trees, screening the kitchen windows from the sun, and my mom spent most of her time in there, but—but they took a lot of water, and—even she couldn't make the fruit any good, so every year—"

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/trees)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/trees)

[Thirteen years, we lived in that house, and that tree never once fucking fruited.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/trees)

And then.

Eliot stops.

Feeling—

"It's okay," Quentin says, very quietly, in Eliot's lap. "You don't have to say it." Carding his fingers, loose, through Eliot's tangled-up knotted-clenched hair.

And.

And the thing is—

—the thing is that once upon a time, in a land far far away, Eliot had told Quentin: _there's nothing fucking magical about saying it_. He had meant: it's okay for it to be hard, it's okay to be afraid, it's okay—to not want to fucking _look_ at it—; but Quentin had just lifted his chin up, with every fucking—_gram_ of hurt and grief and love and fear inside of him just—showing, right there, all over his fucking face; until Eliot had said: _I love you_ (not for the first time), because—because telling Quentin was always like—like cutting a string, tethering Quentin to a ten thousand pound weight; and, just like always, Quentin's face had slackened and gone soft: his body bowing forward to press his forehead to Eliot's forehead at first and then curling close and then closer and then _closer_: curling up so tightly together in the guest bedroom in Ted's house in Jersey that they barely had room for air; and then, when Eliot had had them huddled together, Quentin feeling, finally, something like a _person_, and less like a _body_, in his arms: then, Quentin had whispered, _Tell me again how there's nothing magical about saying it_, like the fucking—pedantic seventh-in-his-class twit he'd always been; then, before Eliot had said—fucking _anything_, Quentin had taken a deep, unsteady breath, and whispered—

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/pulse)

[Tell me again how there's nothing magical about saying it.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/pulse)

"Anyway." Eliot laughs. "Never did cut them down." He inhales: one, two, three—; as he tucks his hand under the back of Quentin's t-shirt: bare warm soft skin. "Just—talked about it a lot," Eliot explains. "Since they were just, you know. Beautiful, and useless": putting his shoulders back, holding his core strong and supple— "Just like me!" Eliot says, bright; and then.

Closes his eyes.

After a moment, Quentin's mouth brushes, gentle, against his temple; and Eliot—

—lifts his chin up, until his mouth meets Quentin's warm mouth.

"So—I don't know," Eliot says, quiet. After. Some time. "I mean—if she taught me to draw, I just—I don't remember," he admits; and Quentin.

Nods.

"But—she's the person who taught you how to cook," he says, "isn't she"; and Eliot's—

—face. Turning, feeling—_hot_. Hot, and crackling, and pinprick-sharp, all over, for—for no reason, just—no fucking reason, is there, why he should feel—

"Yeah," Eliot says. "She taught me how to cook." Looking at—the very edge. Of the carved wooden honeycomb side. 

Of the clock. 

In the corner of his eye, Quentin nods; and Eliot—can't, can he? He can't—_not look at him_, when he's—right there, for looking at— "She's a good cook," Quentin says, serious, when Eliot meets his eyes; and Eliot—

—laughs.

Quentin's eyebrows furrow. Bending, in the middle—

"No—no, I mean—" Eliot shakes his head, rubbing—up, under Quentin's shirt. "Yeah, she's a good cook, I just—there was this. _Thing_, after Marianne died—Marianne, that's, um, she was—"

He hesitates; and Quentin nods, saying, "Your g—"

"—her mother-in-law," Eliot says: clumsy, but fast: and Quentin.

Pauses.

"Right," Quentin says. "I remember": and Eliot's ribs—. "So," Quentin prompts, "Rachel's mother-in-law, Marianne": and Eliot—Christ. Leaning forward, mute and desperate, to kiss the dip at the base of Quentin's throat.

Pulling back: "I don't fucking deserve you," Eliot whispers, his chest unclenching over and over as he looks up at Quentin: above him just barely in his lap—; and Quentin's eyebrows—

—lift.

"_Uh_." He laughs. "I seem to recall—an agreement—": as Eliot breathes out: one—; "—about the going exchange rate, for saying shit like that": as Eliot comes to the end of his air, and then.

Nods.

"Okay," he says. Still feeling—drawn tight: "I—do deserve you," Eliot says anyway, "because—we're both fucking fabulous"; while Quentin dimples down at him: tender, and sweet; and Eliot clings to the back of his henley. Presses a kiss to Quentin's collarbone, so Quentin will press one to his temple. "But—tomorrow's going to be." Breathing in: one. Two. Three; easy, nearly; "A fucking zoo," Eliot explains, "so—so I'll call Genevive's office on Monday. Okay?"; because sometimes you promise your boyfriend that you'll go to therapy if he does; and then. _Then_ you find yourself in Chicago, a year later, with—will all those agreements, still in effect—

"Monday's New Year's," Quentin reminds him. 

"Tuesday," Eliot corrects; and Quentin's smile softens, as he nods.

Leaning—

—_in_—

"So," Quentin says, after a heartbeat or seven. Still—kissing, nearly. "You were—there was a story, I think." Pulling back: "About, um. Rachel cooking? And—Marianne"; and Eliot—laughs. _Again_: like he keeps—feeling startled, somehow. Even though—

"Yeah, I—okay." Eliot shifts, a little, mostly because it makes Quentin squirm. "So—you'll like this one, probably—one of our neighbors," Eliot explains. "Mrs. Langley. She came over to the house, with like—it was a Jell-O mold, with pickle pieces in it": and—as all the color drains out of Quentin's horrified lovely face— "Right?" Eliot says, nodding. "And—I mean, I get it, I was six and that still fucking _haunts_ me, it was—it was lime Jell-O, too, so it was actually—even worse than you're thinking, probably, but Mrs. Langley was. Very much—of a type. And—well, there'd been a bereavement, so she brought a dish. And Rachel—I mean, God, _you've_ met her, she's—so fucking—_polite_, you know—"

Quentin snorts. "_Rachel_?" he says, and then—laughs.

Eliot looks at him. "You—I mean, Q," he says, "you're not—seriously going to try and convince me that, like—Rachel's secretly a Margo-style bitch, because—"

"God, no, of course not," Quentin says, smiling: eyes crinkled up. "She's just—a Rachel-style bitch, like—God, you know that's where you got it, right?"

Eliot blinks. "Got what?"

"The art of the devastating un-compliment," Quentin says. "Like—God, when we were arguing about music, she was all—'That's a very interesting position to take, Quentin,' which is, like, _so fucking obviously_ code for 'I can't believe someone who's nominally sort of intelligent actually likes Taylor Swift'—"

"I mean, it's not that you _like_ Taylor Swift, it's _how much_ you like Taylor Swift," Eliot explains; and Quentin leans back for the _sole purpose_ of flipping him the bird, because he's ridiculous. "Anyway—I mean, whether or not—_this_ Rachel drags _you_, or whatever, she wasn't—_like_ that, back then. It just—she didn't do that kind of thing. She just—God, you know, it was just this, like, seventy-year-old church lady in a floral dress with shoulderpads, stomping over with a Jell-O mold, and Rachel, you know, invited her into the kitchen, and made her a cup of tea, while Mrs. Langley was criticizing—God, what _didn't_ she criticize," Eliot says, and laughs; "the house; the yard; me, for being—I don't know, in jeans, dirty, six years old; and—like, Rachel, for still having plates drying in the dish drainer, at ten a.m, and probably the windows weren't as clean as they could be, and finally Rachel's like, 'Wow, I've never seen anything like this before!', you know—admiring this horrifying Jell-O mold, and Mrs. Langley—who was, just between us, so fucking awful not even _Marianne_ liked her—she's like, 'Well, of course, no one ever taught you to cook _properly_, did they,' because that was sort of—Marianne's perpetual dead horse, too, and she and Mrs. Langley were like—evil judgemental hag of Indiana kindred spirits, even if—well." He waves a hand, and then—then puts it back: on Quentin's warm spine. "So Rachel," Eliot explains, "who actually _could_ cook, like—nothing fancy, but at least it all fucking _tastes_ good, she just nods and agrees, and goes gets Mrs. Langley another cup of tea and says, 'Well, I certainly had no idea how many things you could do with gelatin,' just—so fucking—_polite_—about it—"

—even as Eliot's brain is catching up with his ears, twenty years late.

Quentin's looking down at him. Not quite half-smiling.

"Oh," Eliot says, after a second. "Huh": and Quentin ducks down, to kiss the edge of Eliot's cheek.

It was—the way she'd said it, Eliot thinks. Like it had meant something else.

Her big eyes, chocolate brown and serious, guileless; and that forever-beautiful smile.

Quentin nuzzles Eliot's eyebrow.

Kisses, very gently, the bridge of his nose.

"I did draw a lot, though," Eliot says. A minute later. "Like—with her, I mean. In the kitchen." He sighs, blinking up at Quentin: "And." His chest aches, for some reason. "And she _did_ teach me." He swallows, and then admits, very quietly: "How to sew."

His back. Feeling—a slow, crawling sea of pinpricks, creeping up over his skin; and then—he laughs. Rubs at his face. 

It's not that big a deal. "She told—she said that at the rate I grew I needed to either pay for my clothes out of the allowance I didn't get or help her with the mending," he explains. Throat tight. "So—so it was. Hard to argue with, that's all." 

Quentin nods, just-stroking the edge of Eliot's jaw, as Eliot blinks, and blinks, and—blinks—and then. Laughs, a little. 

"But—I mean, actually?" he says, squinting up at Quentin. "Actually, mostly in the kitchen I just did my homework, probably. I was—you know, I'd go in there on—on school nights, and stuff, so—I don't really remember the details, but I mean—logically. I must've been doing my homework. And—I do remember her. Helping me, or—or trying to, at any rate, like—she wasn't ever a very good student, either, so." He shrugs, as Quentin squeezes the back of his neck. "Probably mostly we fucked up my spelling homework together and then—then she let me sit under the table with the dog and color or whatever," Eliot says. Thick. "And—and that's just—the part that I remember, whether or not—it, like, _counted_ more, or whatever, just because—because it was so—important": his throat. Pulling—tight. "Having—a place," Eliot explains, "where—where I could do—_my_ stuff, you know? Draw or sew or, or whatever I fucking wanted, basically, in the kitchen with her in the quiet, until—"

His throat. Closing up.

Because.

Because—that night. That night, not-quite a year ago, in suburban New Jersey: when there had been a night, black and cold, when Eliot had told Quentin it didn't matter if he could be honest and then proved to them both that it did, and then Quentin had taken a deep, unsteady breath, and whispered, _I'm going to say a last thing to him, Eliot, I'm going to—say something to him_, soon, _and—and it's going to be. The _last_ thing, and—and I—I'm so fucking—like, Christ, what's the fucking—_point_, of—of fucking—_any_ of it, if—if this is just—what _happens_, if I just—have power to—to fix things, right up until it matters and then I _don't_, and I—I can't stop—I can't even fucking—make it count, or what—the fuck ever, I can't—do it _right_, I can't—just make myself fucking—just _be_ with him, because—because one of these times it's going to be the last time and I'm always fucking—_tangled up_ in that, and I just—I'm just—Christ, I'm—I'm _mad_, El, I'm so fucking mad, I'm _angry_, I—I'm fucking—_furious; and then Eliot had kept his arms around him while Quentin had cried, and cried, and cried. And Eliot had thought about—how blank he had felt, how weightless, how hollowed out, for his whole long first endless deconstruction of a winter: in Spanish class, in the hospital, at the funeral home, in the car, staring up at the ceiling of that shitty apartment in Middletown untethered to—anything, _anything_; and mad at—at nothing that had ever lived in the world. So that black cold January night Eliot had held onto Quentin while Quentin sobbed his fucking heart out and Eliot remembered feeling nothing and thought over and over and over: _You are the bravest person that I have ever, ever fucking met_.

"Until," Eliot says, scratchy, "we heard his truck pull up, in the driveway"; and in his lap in his apartment, in Chicago, Quentin raises his chin, to press his mouth to the middle of Eliot's forehead.

Eliot breathes in (two, three, four). Out: two. Three. Four—

"It's just—I remember." He swallows. "This windowseat," he says; and then. "Or—it wasn't a windowseat, not really, but. But I used it like one, until I got too tall." He swallows. Swallows. "It was actually—this huge, ancient sideboard, under the window in the pantry." His—ribs. Locking up. He's not sure—if he can, but— "It was like—generations of the family's poor put-upon wives had kept, like, their mixing bowls and canning supplies and shit in the bottom half of it, I don't even remember, I just remember—we never could move it, to clean behind it," he says, and then laughs. "It weighed a fucking ton." Swallowing, swallowing, swallowing: like it would help, against the sea. "But—the top part of it," Eliot says, scratchy. "It had—this little lid, that flipped up, with—this sort of—weird shallow space, underneath it—maybe three, four inches deep? Like—a hundred years ago it was probably where they kept the silver, but—there definitely wasn't any silver. By the time—that I can remember, at least." 

Eliot—takes another breath. Looking up and counting Quentin's heartbeats (—two—three—): as Quentin, sitting across his thighs, nods at him: looking down. 

"But my mom," Eliot explains: a sharp, hot ache. "She let me keep—like, my markers and, and sketchbooks and stuff in there." Like—like a knife, that someone hid—_inside_ of him: cutting its way out. "She had this ratty old blanket," Eliot manages; and then. He has to stop again, for a moment. (Quentin's weight.) (Quentin's hand.) "It was—fuck." Eliot had hated that blanket: "It was, like, super lopsided, pastel rainbow stripes: she'd made it when she was still in high school, and—God, it was hideous, but at least it was soft, and she kept it in there. In the sideboard. On—on top of all my stuff."

And. And the part that—that Eliot still can't say, he thinks: January, in the afternoons. Brandishing—a wooden spoon, except—

"And if it was cold," he says: airless. Sore: Quentin's hands in his hair, stroking. Stroking: tethering Eliot to the earth. "She'd let me wear it," Eliot says, "like a cape": and then—

—closes his eyes. 

"Superhero Eliot," Quentin says, quietly; and Eliot's face cracks. Or—he smiles. Or something.

"She called me Dinosaur Boy," he admits; and then squints an eye open. "I really liked dinosaurs, when I was little."

Quentin raises an eyebrow. "Hey," he says, feelingly. "I _still_ really like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are the shit": and Eliot—laughs.

(Again.)

(Impossible, almost—

—except.).

So Eliot—nods. When he tips his head down, Quentin's hands just—follow: right—right to. The ache, at the base of his skull. 

After a minute. "He almost never came into the kitchen," Eliot says. Quiet. "But—I remember—he did, this one time. Looking for Uno, I think—our collie. Who was the world's laziest working dog, but—she was still a really good dog."

"Yeah?" Quentin says, with—with the sort of tense apprehension of someone who Eliot _knows_ lets Tequila sleep under the duvet with him when he crashes at Kady's: Eliot can feel his mouth—twisting up.

"Come now, Quentin," he says, "he never would've done anything to the _dog_": and Quentin lets out a short sharp furious breath, looking up at the ceiling.

Shaking his head.

"Fuck," he says, blinking. "Fuck, El, I—fuck, I'm so sorry."

"I'm not," Eliot says, "I fucking loved that dog": and Quentin meets his eyes, mouth twisting; but. He nods, doesn't he. 

Tugging, light, at the back of Eliot's hair. 

"I—anyway." Eliot shakes his head. "He was—looking for Uno, probably, and—I don't know, honestly, what, like. Set him off, or whatever, but—for some reason, he got kind of. Suspicious, I don't know, I don't know what _of_, really, but—he went over and flipped the top of the sideboard up, looking for—I don't even know, gay porn?" He barks a laugh, hard and sharp. "I was—I don't know, I don't even know if I was ten yet," he says. "I'm pretty sure I still had missing baby teeth." Throat sore: as Quentin squeezes the back of his neck. "So—I've never had any idea what—anyway." Eliot inhales, slow. 

Exhales. Steady. 

"Yeah," Quentin says, quiet; and Eliot nods.

Sighs.

"So, anyway," Eliot says. Whatever: he waves a hand. "He went over to the sideboard," he explains, "and—and he flipped the lid up, and I remember—my heart pounding and my hands feeling all shaky, I was—_Christ_, I was terrified": he laughs. "But—all he saw was the blanket, you know? He didn't even think to look under it." Breathing out. "And my mom, she just—explained to him, super super calmly, that she got cold in the kitchen in the mornings, sometimes, when she was doing the accounts, and it wasn't like they could use _that_ blanket anywhere else, not where anyone could _see_ it. Could they."

He swallows. Throat sore: and then—

"And he agreed," Eliot says, very quietly.

Quentin's—hands. Still moving. Slow, slow, slow: over and over, through Eliot's aching hair.

After a second, Quentin says, "He didn't find your drawings."

Low.

Eliot takes a breath.

"No," he says, finally. "No, he never did"; and Quentin—rests a hand on his cheek, looking down at him; until Eliot can bear to look up: meet those wide, steady dark eyes.

Eliot lifts his chin.

Soft: lip to lip.

They don't, he thinks, really kiss for that long. Mostly just—sharing air, honestly: nuzzling at each other in that soft warm animal space they make between their bodies—

And then the clock makes that same awful _whirr-grind-click!_, somewhere between shifting without the clutch down and a dentist's drill; and then—as they pull apart—it wobbles, a little, atop the desk: as the top window springs open to show them snow! snow! snow!; as the clock's psychotically chipper invisible pianist trots through a long bright arpeggiated flourish; and then settles back into—

Eliot looks back up at Quentin. Eyebrows lifting: "Is that—Katy Perry?" he asks; even though it definitely is; it's that stupid fucking eye of the tiger song that Quentin—turning pink, in Eliot's lap—always sings at karaoke after finals. "..._Baby_," Eliot says: almost _shattered_ with fondness; and Quentin flattens both his hands across his face.

"I think it'll get better when I'm not here to influence it every day?" Muffled.

"Yeah, I mean," Eliot says. "Okay, but—I already hate this trade?" And then—then he manages a laugh, from somewhere, when Quentin drops his hands. 

Blinking down at him. 

Bending forward, slow, to brush his mouth over Eliot's.

"I'll come back," Quentin says, "in just a little while": and sternum aching, Eliot wraps his arms tight-tight-tight around Quentin's warm back.

"Hey," Eliot says, after a minute. Quiet. Tucking Quentin's dumb little flip of hair back. "What if. You could—show me the rest of these hot dead Coldwaters, hm?": and Quentin—huffs. Bending in: another kiss.

"You're just fantasizing about me in a suit and top hat, aren't you," Quentin says, and then stands up—which—_no_, except—except Quentin is just.

Turning to face the table, and then sitting back down.

"I mean—all the time," Eliot admits, as Quentin settles back into Eliot's lap, squirming a little: torturous, delightful. Eliot's ribs—sinking. Settling back into place. "But also, I _love_ vintage gossip—ooh, who's the babe?" because Quentin has leaned forward—hngh—to select a photo of a young Matthew—probably in his Brakebills days, Eliot is guessing, going by the moustache—with a very, _very_ hot dark-haired woman in a dress with what he suspects is, in fact, a very slightly scandalous neckline. 

"No label," Quentin says. "Unfortunately. And I've been going through his Brakebills letters, but—there definitely were women there. So—"

"I thought the women's school was Sandybills?" Eliot asks; and Quentin nods.

"It was, but it had already merged with Brakewater, in 1883," he explains. "Because Brakewater kept losing to Sandybills at welters, which was apparently super embarrassing, since Sandybills wasn't actually allowed to grant anything other than diplomas—they couldn't even get accredited for BA degrees. So—okay, fine, twenty years later, there definitely would've been women in his classes and stuff, but like—Matthew was pretty sneaky about it, actually," Quentin admits; and then tips his head to the side, sighing, so that Eliot can nibble on his neck. "I mean—I'm nowhere near done with the letters, but so far, he hasn't even, like—_mentioned_ any girls, when he's writing to Beth. It's all like, oh, 'har-har, elaborate pranks in the PA building, followed by rugged masculine athleticism, and then we all went drinking!' or whatever." 

Eliot looks down at the photo. "Some light undergraduate wild-oat sowing, then, do we think?" he asks, holding it up; and Quentin—squints at it.

"God, d'you think so?" he asks. "Like—_really_? Like, if wild oats actually _were_ sown, that would be—super weird," he says, voice uncertain. "Like. I might have. _Cousins_, out there, somewhere, or something."

"Half-cousins," Eliot points out.

"Well, yeah, but I mean—a hundred years ago, y'know?" Quentin shrugs. "_Any_ relative I have would have to be—really not all that related to me."

Eliot swallows. Nods, nuzzling, as he kisses the back of Quentin's neck.

"Maybe," Quentin says, after a second, "there was a _scandal_": and—he's trying a little too hard, isn't he: Eliot can hear it; but—the effort still makes him smile, right into Quentin's warm skin.

"Mm," he agrees. "Think he, what?" He tucks his chin up, over Quentin's shoulder. "Took her—to the woods out behind the admin building?" He curls his fingers around the knee of Quentin's PJs; and Quentin—presses a hand to the tabletop. Nodding. Nodding.

"Up against a tree," Quentin agrees, very low. 

Eliot breathes. Breathes. "Finals study break," he suggests, petting; as Quentin's knees fall open.

"Yeah," he says. Thick. "In between—um. Classes, and exams."

Eliot nods. Rubbing—

"Could've taken her back to his rooms," he says, very low; and Quentin—shivers.

"No," he says. "No, I—nnh—El—"

"Yeah," Eliot whispers: petting. Up the inseam. "You think—he'd rather have taken her into the woods."

"Think—_both_," Quentin says; and then. Shudders. "Think—he _needed_ to"; and Eliot.

Swallows.

"Yeah," he says. Quiet. "Couldn't—couldn't wait for—for a bed, or—or a door, even?"

"No," Quentin says. Rough. "Just—sitting in. In the library, thinking about—about getting—getting under. All—all those buttons," Quentin says, unsteady: and then drops his head forward, bracing his hands against the edge of the table. Pushing—back—

"Yeah," Eliot agrees. Riding—up: pressing his dick against Quentin through their pants and fuck, this is. A really, really bad idea: Eliot's pulse an unsteady reckless throb in his throat. "Needed to get down to—to all that _fucking_ skin," Eliot says: scraping his mouth across— "Just shove," he whispers, "all those fucking skirts up": Quentin shivers; as Eliot—licks. "Desperate." At his earlobe: "fucking—_frantic_, to get inside": Quentin wriggling—up, and back, to grind on Eliot's erection while Eliot, heart pounding, is still whispering: "Just—just opened his fly and whipped it out, got those skirts up, just did it like that—didn't even": Eliot—bites, and then mouths, "push his stockings down": to which Quentin snorts, sudden; and then flattens a hand over his mouth.

Just then, the bathroom door creaks open. At the other the end of the hall.

"You're a very bad man," Quentin whispers, twisting to look towards him; and Eliot nods, and kisses him once, before he nudges Quentin—careful, reluctant—up and over, back into his own chair.


	7. fracture.

### 7\. fracture.

#### Friday, December 29, 2017

Warm.

That's. The thing, the first thing, that he's. _Warm_, and—wriggling, a little, which. Is always—so nice, just. Sliding their legs together, under—under the sheets, while—Eliot pets his knuckles over Quentin's cheek, clumsy, while Quentin drags his mouth over Eliot's shoulder.

"Mm." Eliot scratches his hand through the back of Quentin's hair. "Morning?"

"Dunno," Quentin sighs; and tips his chin up. 

In the dark, their faces rub together. Eliot licks over Quentin's bottom lip: tacky, a little dry. And—bad. It tastes—bad. Quentin tastes—bad, so Eliot—should kiss him more. Until—until Eliot just. Can taste. Them. Them-ness, skin and spit, in the dark. Quentin smells good, like his sweat and his skin and his hair before he washes it; and he's soft-and-hard-and-soft all over, his thick silky hair scratchy jaw soft soft mouth stiff cock the soft fluttering fan of his eyelashes rubbing against Eliot's cheek and his square solid hands pawing at the meat of Eliot's shoulder, while Eliot tangles their knees up. Calves. Feet: while he shifts his hips against Quentin's. Quentin's breath catches, a little: so Eliot sticks a thumb in his mouth. Quentin shivers. Sucks, a little; while Eliot rubs his free hand down the tacky-damp plane of Quentin's warm back. 

"Quiet," Eliot breathes; and then—rolls over, on top of—Quentin. Who—_squirms_: humping up against the fabric sliding down the crest of Eliot's hip. Q'd been in PJs and a henley when they'd gone to bed, but now—he's naked again. S'nice. Predictable. Eliot sighs, happy, and pushes the waistband of his own pajama bottoms down: just to feel him. Squeezes his butt, which is—that's nice, too. Quentin's breathing hard, already. Tender all over Eliot rubs at the meat of Quentin's tongue, and Quentin gives one of those lush, full-body shivers, while Eliot—swallows. Blinking at the hot tangible desaturated blur of him, barely visible, in the snow-filtered smear of streetlights trickling in through the window. "Gonna be quiet for me?" Eliot whispers, and when Quentin nods frantically, sucking and sucking at his thumb, Eliot kisses his forehead. Rubs down over the plush warm pillow of his bottom lip. "Lick," Eliot coaxes; and then—doesn't even have to pretend to cover Quentin's mouth, because Eliot can _feel_ it, that moan: starting somewhere deep down in Quentin's chest pressed tight to his bare prickling chest. 

"Shhh." Eliot kisses the tip of his nose. "Be good for me, mm?"; and under his hand, Quentin whimpers. Muffled, as he squirms: riding his erection up against Eliot's stomach, fuck, he's hot for it: and Eliot—he can't—he definitely isn't going to—do something _crazy_, like _not_ hold his hand there until Quentin has licked at—at his palm, just-up-against the insides of his fingers; any more than he's going to do something totally fucking batshit insane like _not_ get a hand around him: just reach down between them and hold Quentin's dick, loose, while Quentin twists, pressing his face down against Eliot's throat panting, panting, panting, until he gasps, "Mm—El, I—," and then squirms up, to bite at Eliot's earlobe. Gasps, "D—Daddy—": right against his skin; and then shudders, hard, all over: pushing his cock through the not-quite-tight enough ring of Eliot's fist.

_God_. Quentin's face is—scalding, burning up and still trying so hard: Christ Eliot loves him. Petting his hair back, kissing his cheekbone: "You need something to suck on?" Eliot whispers; and Quentin nods, nods: frantic; so Eliot tucks three fingers back into Quentin's wet mouth. "Hold still," Eliot whispers; and then—shifts, a little, so he can fuck right up against him—God that's good. Eliot presses his face to Quentin's shoulder, trying—trying to. To keep his breath steady, even with—with Quentin's body hot rabbit-trembling underneath him: holding him—down, close; holding the both of them together; keeping—keeping his wrist loose and just—just _pulling_, just a little: so so fucking gentle, because every long-slow-light stroke like that just makes Quentin's whole body tremble, makes him knot his hands up on, on Eliot's ass, in Eliot's chest hair; makes him curl his tongue in between Eliot's fingers and drag his lips almost-but-not-quite to Eliot's fingerprints and then suck and suck and _suck_ while Eliot pulls them off slow—slow—steady—slow—_steady_—

—and on the nightstand, Eliot's phone alarm starts blaring: 5:30 a.m.

Startled Eliot flails out for it: right-handed, because—rock and a fucking hard place, Jesus, he's not letting go of—so instead he's fucking—trailing spit all over his phone screen with Quentin's hips still snapping up against his into his left fist: "Fuck," Quentin gasps, shuddering; just in time for Eliot to fucking _knock the phone onto the floor_, where it continues to ring, heartlessly: Eliot tightens his hand, pulse pounding, while he tries to—to _curl_ an unwinding-rope of his telekinesis out to, to grab it while he puts his panting mouth over Quentin's hot mouth: "Are y—mm," Quentin gasps, and then—kisses him, so Eliot—kisses back, breathes, "_Trying_—" as—as instead, _fuck_, his phone skitters away along the floor _under the bed_—

—and then—

—he hears—a squeak, creaking: from—from the _pullout_, _shit_, and under him Quentin goes taut-trembling still. 

"_Fuck_": Eliot—lets go, somehow, and pulls—back, careening drunkenly up to his feet; flicks the light on and crouches down to fish the phone out from under the bed with his pajamas shoved down his thighs while all the while, his phone continues to squawk like a deranged cockatiel. His heart is fucking—_slamming_ against the insides of his ribs. "God, sorry, sorry," he says, not even—trying to be quiet: "Sorry, it's okay, it's for me, you can go back to sleep," he says, pushing back up to his feet: and Quentin's eyebrows fly up, looking—_totally_ disbelieving, while—sprawled out in the mess of their sheets—he points down at his dick: still standing up, rock-hard and red and wet-smeared the way—the way he _always_ gets; and Quentin practically waving orange traffic flags at it: like, _excuse_ me?

Eliot just—flaps a hand at the illusion wall, because—_come on_, Quentin; and Quentin's expression—slackens. Annoyed, obviously, because—well, Eliot is, too; but also—softening, resigned: as Quentin drops back against their pillows. Lets out a sigh.

Eliot rubs at his own scratchy clay face, and then sits down on the bed next to him. Touches Quentin's neck; and Quentin shivers. Reaches up to pet a thumb over Eliot's cheek: dark-eyed. The corner of his mouth is—curling, just a little: lovely, and rueful, and sweet. 

Eliot turns to kiss the meat of Quentin's palm. 

"I don't have to go to work," Quentin says: very convincingly sleep-scratchy; and Eliot bends down to kiss his mouth, instead.

"No," he says, quiet. "You can go back to sleep."

Quentin's hand finds his. Over Quentin's warm furry chest: their fingers interlace, as they kiss.

"If I let you go now, will you have time to rub one out in the shower?" Quentin whispers; and then—either very helpfully or _not helpfully at all_, Eliot's not sure which, _licks_: tender, wide-open, into the starving hollow of Eliot's mouth.

"Think—I'd better," Eliot whispers, "probably," and then—then he just—cups Quentin's throat: holding, just a little, just—just for a little while, while Quentin. Squirms: dark-eyed, flushing; golden against their sheets. Eliot swallows, against—against his usual very, very long list of very, very, _very_ bad ideas, and then leans in to kiss him one last time, before he drags his pajama bottoms up and his pajama shirt back on, for—for something like plausible deniability, and goes to shower.

And—yes. Fine. Eliot is—a fucking _expert_ at beating it in the shower: after all, a shower means abundant heat, easy cleanup, a handy pump-bottle of conditioner if you have (for _some_ reason) had to hide all of your more traditional lubricants: who _isn't_ an expert at beating it in the shower? Well—besides Quentin, who tends to hamster-wheel about sex with no one there to help him not—not think himself _out_ of himself; and besides, doing something that would make him feel better, easily and quickly and without a lot of fuss, is just—just not really in the Quentin Coldwater playbook. Is it. And—well, the thing is, Eliot finds, grimly giving his dick another tug, that it's kind of annoyingly difficult to really, like—_get into it_, isn't it, when—when about six and a half minutes ago he was lying on top of—yes. Fine. Focus, Eliot: six minutes ago, lying in bed, on top of Quentin, who'd whimpered and quivered and called Eliot 'Daddy' even though—even though he'd been—Christ, he'd been embarrassed, hadn't he; he'd been so so red and so so hot, his little dick—yes, _that's_ it, keep—keep going: so—Quentin's little dick, Eliot thinks, decisive: Quentin's hot thick hard-on, fitting—fitting right into Eliot's hand, filling—no. No. No, it's—_smaller_ than that, isn't it: so—so little it can't—it can't hold all of it, can it, how—how good it feels, so—so Quentin's <strike>thick</strike> his little dick: tiny, really; tiny and, and rock fucking hard, leaking all over the both of them while Eliot held him down and brought him off: gentle—gentle—gentle, and Q got—so fucking embarrassed about—about how much he'd li—so embarrassed that—that he'd felt like he was running a 105° fever, and if Eliot—if Eliot'd had about—about thirty fucking more seconds, to just—to just pet at—at Quentin's lovely trembling little body quivering under him, stroke that thick—little, beautiful little perfect little m-mouthful of him, just—just dragging up against—against the underside of Eliot's cock as Eliot pressed it heavy and massive against him—: another thirty seconds and, and Quentin would've just—_burst_, wouldn't he? Let—let all that embarrassment fly out of him like—like birds, or butterflies, and just fucking—_let go_, let Eliot—hold him down, hold him in place, hold him close keep him safe so he could just—_be_ there, in his body, with Eliot—Eliot just—just fucking t—tangled up in him pressed everywhere over him t—to, to hold—hold him and protect him and take _care_ of him, to just—just t—o be—be, be—be there, be there, _be there_, _with_ him, and—and _fuck_.

Fuck. Fuck, _fuck_—

Eliot drops his forehead against the shower wall. Breathing in, deep: because—

—_fuck_.

He lets go of his dick. Shoulders—tight, aching. His spine taut—hunched; resentful—while he takes a slow, deep breath; and washes his hair instead.

Quentin's in the kitchen, by the time Eliot's gotten himself together enough to come out for a cup of coffee. Quentin's got his pajamas on: definitely the right choice, and yet still a little bit disappointing. The lights by the pullout are off, still; and Eliot's brain flares a single harsh titanium-bright surge of _if she wasn't even fucking waking up in the first place—_, before he shoves himself back under control. Hard. Ruthless. 

Necessary.

The clock is resting, quiet, on his desk. Surrounded by all of Quentin's delicate, fiddly little tools. In the half-light trickling out from the kitchen, the moon in the bottom window gleams. Below it: the Quentin who isn't Quentin, and the Eliot who isn't Eliot: wrapped up together, holding on, tight. Beside the coffee maker in the apartment, Eliot ducks down. Kisses the back of Quentin's warm neck: Quentin shivers. That woman: Eliot thinks; barely. The woman, ducking her face down into her scarf. It looks like—like it's been _growing_, almost, in the night. Wild, half-alive: its long embroidered ends whipping out around her in—in the wind, that isn't, of course, actually wind. 

In the kitchen in the apartment, Quentin warm before him reaches back. Sliding his solid familiar fingers up, into Eliot's hair; tugging, a little. And Eliot. Eliot just—

Closes his eyes.

"Why can't I just stay here?" he whispers; and then wraps his arms around Quentin's chest, when Quentin shivers. Hunching back.

"Because you'd end up sticking it to me up against the landing window, probably," Quentin says, very low, "and then you'd be late for work, and also scandalize your m—all your neighbors."

"That window doesn't actually show down that far," Eliot points out, and then—sighs. "But—I would be late for work, and—do I care about that?"

"You do care about that," Quentin says, "most of the time." 

His voice is gentle. Quiet. He turns, twisting back over his shoulder to kiss Eliot, once, before passing him the first cup of coffee.

Eliot sighs. Takes it, and—pulls back, somehow, to get out a plate, the bread, his peanut butter. As soon as the second cup of coffee's done, Quentin comes over. Drags his chair right up next to Eliot's, so he can—well, sit in Eliot's lap, more or less, but also have something not _wholly_ unlike plausible deniability. Eliot switches his toast to his right hand so he can pull Quentin closer. Rub—heart skipping up—his palm over Quentin's knee, and then—up.

Quentin sighs, dropping his head back. "S'a nice thought," he admits, "_but_."

"Yeah," Eliot agrees, quiet. Resettles his hand, warm and soft, against Quentin's little belly: he likes it, so much. "I know."

He ducks his head. Kisses the side of Quentin's jaw; and Quentin sighs again. Pulling forward, a little, to fold his arms up on the table, rest his forehead on them; while Eliot—

—leans back. Just enough, to take another bite of his toast.

His hand, still, tucked under Quentin's body-warm shirt.

"It's not that big a deal," Quentin mumbles, in that sort of—rough, lopsided way of his; and Eliot slides his hand down. Squeezes Quentin's hip. Pets up, over Quentin's henley, to his shoulder: Quentin shivers. Pressing his head down even further, as though—as though Eliot doesn't know how hand fits, perfect, just around the back of Quentin's warm neck. 

"Wish I could, though," Quentin says, very, very low.

"Yeah," Eliot says. Soft. "We'll just—save it, though. Yeah?"

Quentin picks his head up. Twisting back to look at him: his face is serious. Studious, almost: God, he's such a nerd; it makes Eliot—_crazy_. He should've—thought about _that_ in the shower. "It's not like it's—a consumable resource," Quentin says; and then.

Flushes scarlet.

_God_. Eliot touches his chin. The flat, pink seam of his mouth: "_Highly_ renewable," Eliot agrees; and Quentin—just gets redder. Christ. Eliot leans in. Kisses him, once; and then whispers: "I'm just so hot for you, no one else will do."

Quentin huffs: good. It was a joke. Mostly. "Not even Sir Ian?" Quentin whispers; and then—kisses him again; and—Christ.

"Sir Ian only on alternate Tuesdays," Eliot concedes, "and I'd rather get you to do it for him, while I can": and Quentin's shoulders hunch as he shivers, all over. God, everything Eliot could do with him. _Will_ do with him: press him back against the headboard, make him—_suck_ it, get Eliot's dildo all—all wet and body-warm while Eliot rides him, pulls his jaw open, holds his hair back, feeds it to him so gentle and relentless he'll keep Quentin in one place in his body eyes wide black-brown steady-certain with his nice thick sturdy cock rock-hard inside Eliot, panting just—just from knowing how, how well Eliot'll take care of him after—: Quentin is breathing in, deep. Curling his fingers up around Eliot's vest buttons, shirt: digging his knuckles down to skin. The little burrowing animal of him. Eliot rubs their noses together. Feeling just—hugely, overwhelmingly tender.

"You could make his acquaintance, if you wanted," Eliot whispers, "while I was at work, in the shower"; and Quentin—flushes: hotter, redder. Eliot kisses his temple. "You don't have to," he says, gentle; and Quentin sighs.

"I know it'd probably make me feel better," he admits, and then sighs again. Pulling back: he's still so red, all over. Even his fingers are pinker than usual. "But—I'd better just—have breakfast, shower. Work on the clock," Quentin says; and then sighs. Takes a breath. "Though honestly, if I'd known that the scissors stood for getting cut off, I'd've asked for my money back," he adds; and then laughs, a little, shaking his head.

"What money?" Eliot asks, reflexive; and then Quentin just—_smiles_ at him, so wide-sweet-lovely that—that by the time the rest of Eliot's caught up with them, it'd feel—ungenerous, honestly, to say, _Wait—_

_—scissors?_

"You want another cup to take with you?" Quentin is asking, nodding at Eliot's coffee as he pushes up to his feet; and Eliot—

—looks, very hard, into the shadows of the living room.

He reaches out. Tugs Quentin over, to—to come closer, closer: before Quentin settles himself, knees parted, straddling Eliot's thighs. Just—just for a moment.

Eliot kisses him. Mouth. Jaw. "I want to suck you off in the laundry room," Eliot whispers, right against Quentin's earlobe: hot, getting hotter.

Quentin swallows: noisy, this close. "Fuck me on top of the dryers?" he suggests: half-breath.

The dryers stack, in their laundry room—but Quentin doesn't know that yet. "Put it into you a quarter-inch at a time," Eliot agrees, "while our sheets are on tumble, because I just—can't fucking wait": and Quentin shivers.

Kisses him. _Kisses_ him—

"Wednesday," Quentin breathes, "is my usual laundry day," nosing against him: and then he presses close-close-close again to give Eliot one last long, wet, and more or less pornographic kiss.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Eliot is—possibly not surprisingly—a little bit late to work, but only really—late to work for _him_, which means that instead of forty-five minutes of catch-up time before anyone more senior than first-year regular staff comes in, he gets about seven and a half. Amahle shows up about 30 seconds after him, looking flustered, her hair a snow-damp corona around her face: "My fucking phone died," she explains, when he jumps, startled: she's already ducking down onto the carpet, frantically pawing around in the tangle of cords around her power strip. "And I forgot my charger—or, or _lost_ it, so—no alarm, no clock, no fucking _bus schedule_—"

"I _wish_ my phone had died," Eliot mutters, under his breath; and when she looks up—"What?"—he shakes his head. Waves a hand: she's a friend, but that one's a sort of. A Margo-only type of friend. "Nothing," he corrects. "Mad about alarms. Do you want to borrow my charger?"; and—she does, so he stops staring pointlessly at Cody's blank black desk; and digs his phone charger out of his satchel, instead.

The problem is that once Georgie is in—which, she is, practically before Eliot's got his notebook out—Eliot knows he can't really count on _not_ having his day continually rewritten around him. Especially with the meeting that afternoon, everyone on staff is trying desperately to finish up anything they need done by Tuesday; and Cody—well. Cody's not in at eight, which isn't weird; or by nine, which is, a bit. By ten, that blank, impractically minimalist desk is just—another thing that Eliot doesn't want to pay attention to, but can't ignore: Georgie already hand-flipped her office door open once to have a half-shouted conversation with Amahle about the A/V projection framework, which means Cody's dropped _that_ one, too; and Eliot's already checked Cody's Slack profile twice. Lu, for her part, came into the office at ten minutes to eight, ignored Eliot's existence 'til eleven, and then came over to grill him for twenty minutes about subsection D-70whatever—the primary sub-section regarding reasonable accommodations for nonhominid corporeations—of FIESTYBITCHES, then marched back into her office and spell-stuck so many files to her glass walls that no one could see her for like an hour, and even then only in pieces. Eliot's so busy that—that he almost doesn't notice, does he, that his phone is totally silent: Margo's gone to get a massage—_well since you fuckers are keeping all the heavy petting in the *midwest*_—and Quentin—well. Quentin does tend to go quiet, when he's involved in something, so—so he's probably just—up to his elbows in gears, or.

Or something.

The meeting's at two. At the very start of the project, the Library loaned them a Janus anchor from cold storage, so they at least they won't have to worry about going for a three-hour meeting and coming back in June, but all morning Eliot still feels—twitchy, off-balance: he can't stop—fussing with his phone, and—Christ, he hates that fucking black obsidian. It doesn't go with anything and becomes nearly blindingly reflective, in certain kinds of light; and Lu's been pacing back and forth in her office, clearly working very hard not to shout at a very unimpressed-looking rabbit in a little yellow bowler hat while Georgie darts back and forth between the rolling whiteboard in the second conference room and Lu's office and _Georgie's_'s office, trailing the sugary tang of Red Bull and accumulating an ever-growing mountain of file folders. Eliot orders himself a sandwich when Amahle tells him to get her one, because she'd had to cast Silver's antipotentiate on her hands so she could handle the Akhtar Grimore and now can't touch her computer for another hour and a half; and he scarfs it at his desk when Amahle—halfway through hers—finally kicks him to actually eat it. "I didn't do anything to it," she tells him, around a mouthful of roast beef, and—Christ, he'd forgotten. He'd wonder, a little, if that meant she _had_, but it's not really her style, is it? He _knows_ she learned that singing-compulsion spell back at Brakebills, because that one comes up at _least_ once a year; and God knows _he'd_ use it on him, with his tawdry church-choir-musical-theater history, but even that, it seems, is a little too far for Amahle. Besides—by noon, _everyone_ is just scrambling to not leave their projects in the shitty sort of place where you've got three days off and just—_worry_ about it all weekend—even Raj, who'd hard-noped out of any unnecessary on-sites after his first runaround with the Janus anchor, which had made him hallucinate an unusually coherent talking walrus, before the vomiting had started—and if there's one thing that Amahle and Eliot are both _totally_ on the same page about, it's the absolute, perfect sanctity of their weekends. If Eliot could work straight through 'til the meeting without a break he would, but he finally caves at twenty past one, and darts down to the Starbucks for another round of coffee. He'd been hoping for a cigarette, too, but he'd forgotten he'd finished the last of the pack on his way into work, and by the time he's waited in line to buy more he doesn't actually have time to smoke any of them.

Upstairs, Cody's desk is still empty. Eliot hesitates, setting the cup carriers down by his notebook: after a second, he asks, "Hey, uh—did Cody ever send you those notes he had, on the windows?" It's twenty 'til, and ten or fifteen minutes to get to the Loop portal nexus: he wonders if he should actually even—take off his coat, or— 

"What, you mean—like, working from home?" Amahle snorts. She looks up, obviously to check that Georgie and Raj and Lu are still in the big conference room, arguing about whether or not they can cast lavage des grottes on the underground caverns (which are 100% going to leak rotting fish smell up through the entire Library's pneumatic tube transport system) without offending Lord Fresh; they're still at it, so Amahle just drops her voice a little before saying, "He barely works from the _office_." 

To which—Eliot. Swallows; but Amahle is already—reaching up, making grabby hands, so Eliot just—hands her her peppermint mocha. Probably—for the best. For the best. And—

—and he'd've thought he'd gotten away with it, almost; but Amahle's eyes are on his face, sharp. "El?" she asks. Her hands wrapped around the cardboard sleeve of her cup.

He swallows. "Wondered if it was a New Year's resolution, or something," he says, light. Waving it away. "So, uh—" He opens his coat, at least. Sits. "Do I need to, like. Wear a magic dispell into the meeting, or—

"Aha," Amahle says: as her face blooms into a wide, shit-eating grin. "You're _nervous_! That's sweet."

"I'm not nervous." 

"Oh, please, I can tell you're nervous." Amahle takes another sip: watching him, head tilted. "It's okay. I was—well, I wasn't nervous, but I'm better than you, so—"

"I'm not nervous." Eliot can see Georgie and Lu, gesticulating at each other just inside the conference room, while Georgie wrestles with her usual three-foot stack of file folders and charms open the door, so—so it's probably time for him to stick his notebook into his bag. Button his coat back up.

"But it would be okay if you were," Amahle says, very seriously, pushing up to her feet. "I understand. It's your first time—"

"Okay, screw you," Eliot says, laughing a little; his ribs—unclenching, almost, as she grins at him.

"No magical dispell needed, I promise," she says. "But if it would make you feel better—want to call an official truce until after the meeting?"; and Eliot rolls his eyes.

"Honestly, if either of us was going to get into trouble for fucking around during the meeting, it'd be _you_, since—"

"How do you know that's not what I've been planning?" Amahle asks; just as the door bangs open: Raj scrubbing his hands through his hair and looking at their about sixteen different crossed-out proposals on the whiteboard, shoulders slumped. Georgie comes out first, Lu just behind her: already sliding her coat on.

"—but if Zelda's going to cut up rough over the subaquatic information center—are you two ready?" Lu asks, looking Eliot and Amahle over: "good—thanks—" taking the decaf Eliot hands her— "a few extra book preservation spells aren't going to calm her down. Is this decaf?" Eliot nods, and she takes a sip, even while beside her, Georgie is, literally, clawing at her own face.

"She is _one hundred percent_ going to cut up rough over the subaquatic information center," Georgie is saying, "even _without_ the fish smell." Then Georgie sighs, holding a hand out to Eliot—taking the can just long enough to set it aside and wrestle her files into the massive multicolored Mary Poppins bag she carries instead of a purse. "You'd better hurry up with that, by the way," she says, nodding at Lu's cup. "I was on my last sip, like, _in the middle of swallowing_, the last time I had an on-site—I'd already thrown away the can and everything—and she _still_ gave me a six minute lecture on _no food or drinks in the Library_." Then Georgie fishes both of the pencils out of her bun and leans over her desk to grab her scarf, which is electric green and covered in daleks.

"Oh—well." Lu tips her cup back. "Amahle—Janus anchor?" Amahle holds it up; so Lu nods again, chugs the last of her coffee, and then tosses it into the trash by the elevator on their way out to the street.

She doesn't, actually, say anything else to Eliot, which is probably—a good sign, probably. Your first invite to sit in on a client meeting as an apprentice isn't really the sort of situation where you _want_ to draw your boss's attention; and besides, he still feels like a total cock about—_everything_, basically, from yesterday. The snow's let up, a little, so they walk instead of taking a Lyft, and Eliot falls a couple steps behind, so he can have his first cigarette since about seven-thirty in the morning, and probably his last until around five. Amahle hates cigarettes but _loves_ fucking with Eliot, so "Anyway," she says, falling into step next to him, "about that truce"; and then sticks her hands in her pockets, grinning hugely. 

Eliot glances up at Georgie and Lu, who are still power-walking in the way of tiny people everywhere while debating the finer points of client psychological warfare: far enough ahead of them that Eliot feels okay asking, "What did you mean," low-voiced: "_how do I know that's not what you're planning?_"

"Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter," Amahle says, breezy. "Truce? To be renegotiated later, of course": holding out her hand; and Eliot sighs, but he shakes on it. It seems like it's probably the best offer he's going to get. "Seriously," Amahle says. "Why _are_ you this nervous? _You're_ not pitching anything. Just—sit there. Pay attention. Make some sketches. Nod along and don't say anything unless someone asks you a question—it's not that hard."

"I'm not nervous," he repeats.

"No," Amahle says, eyeing him sidelong. "I can tell."

Eliot sighs. "I just kind of—I fucked up a little, yesterday, that's all." He takes a long, long drag. "It's—whatever. Lu thinks I'm an idiot, same old same old. It's not that big a deal."

Amahle hesitates, for another step or two, then says, "I mean—I don't know what you did, but it's not like Lu holds grudges, or whatever. If you fucked up, she'll tell you and she'll tell you how to fix it, but that's all. You don't have to, like, do every coffee run for a month, or whatever."

"No, I know." Eliot laughs. "I do know that, I just—wanted a coffee, that's all."

Amahle hums, sounding unconvinced; but they're almost to the Rookery building, so she doesn't pursue it.

Small mercies. He didn't, actually, lie to her: he isn't, actually, nervous about the meeting. He's _never_ nervous about gatherings with other people—prides himself on it, actually: knowing that he can step in, smooth things over, get everyone laughing again, chatting, trying new cocktails, dancing—or, well, pretending they can dance—and even if that sort of thing isn't exactly the kind of thing you can break out in a client meeting—well, Eliot is Lu Ximénez's apprentice. He deals with scarier people than Zelda Schiff every day. It's just—

He's left his phone in the office. It wouldn't work in the Library, anyway; and _No socializing_, Lu had told him, voice sharp. It still—it just makes him twitchy, that's all. Alice _is_ there, but even if Eliot _wanted_ to be unprofessional enough to, like, catch her up on—_whatever_: Brakebills, Chicago, Quentin's thighs; he couldn't, since Alice spends the whole meeting sitting in the corner in victory rolls and a pencil skirt, taking longhand notes and ignoring him like it's her life calling. But Eliot still feels—jumpy, a little: knowing Lu's watching him. Not, like, _literally_: literally, Lu's watching Georgie go twelve rounds with the other Librarian—older Black guy, trim beard, _way_ too hot for the way Eliot keeps forgetting his name—on cross-planar legal requirements, while Amahle and Eliot watch Lu. As they should, probably. Even if beyond introductions, Lu doesn't actually talk—like at all—for nearly an hour: for the first thirty minutes or so, Georgie, as planned, walks the Librarians first through the updates to the exterior framework, and then starts in on how they'll be anchoring that to the work they're planning inside; but then H—He—Harry? no, fuck, Lu'll _kill_ him, if she realizes Eliot missed it, but—_whatever_ his name is, as soon as Georgie starts in on what Amahle had done with the tiered flooring, he just—

—pounces. 

While beside him, Zelda Schiff exchanges the minutest of looks with Alice; and then turns the megawatt force of her attention back on Georgie, whose round cheeks are flushing wildly, chalk all over her fingers and sleeves, while the other Librarian grills her about ambient power slippage. Lu'd been right to expect the hardest pushback on the accessibility modifications: every Library branch in the multiverse apparently looks more or less exactly the same, and since they were last renovated in 1946 none of them are due for another go-around until—horrifyingly—2759, Earth timeline. So it isn't a shock that _either_ Schiff or H—er colleague seem determined to counter on every single detail: from Eunice's nautilian tiered flooring (height differentials; drainage) to all of Amahle's work to make sure the card catalogue could be used by visiting graeae to Eliot's massive week-long migraine over the study carrels. The entire time—the Library hammering Georgie with questions about countering water damage from naiad access to the stacks or how, precisely, they were supposed to prevent the fauns from carousing in the second-floor refreshment lounge—Lu just watches. She just—_watches_: she—she had just _watched_, let Georgie take everything they threw at her and knock it back—

—right up to the point where H—otpants McLibrarian had asked Georgie how they planned to integrate the Library's system-wide biographical privacy spell framework, if they were using Pham's extension of the Bellweather flexible space-expansion and attendantly a Kansai-Rokuken durable spellwork schema; while Schiff sat with her back ramrod-straight and gave Lu a tight, prissy little smile. And _Georgie_—

—Georgie hadn't even paused. 

Eliot remembers that. Climbing from the Loop portal through the Rookery's basement and out into the full-on howling Chicago gale, hunching into his stylish inadequacy of a coat: Lu is a bright red blur through the snow ahead of him, Georgie's scarf trailing electric green beside her, clashing horribly. Georgie hadn't even _paused_. Eliot's not sure of a lot, but he's _positive_ that Georgie hadn't known the answer, but—but she still hadn't so much as hesitated, had she? She had just turned, very slightly, and said: _Lu, would you like to take that one?_; and Lu had said: _Of course_.

The ensuing massively theoretical deep dive into linking up incompatible spell schemas had had a back-and-forth tennis-match feel that should've been—_fun_, Eliot thinks, under—other circumstances; but—but Eliot just feels—tired. Wrung out. A little hungover, because of the Janus anchor, too: the Librarians had dragged in six separate chalkboards by the end: made Lu and Georgie account for the wellspring groundwater, the candy rain; the—admittedly terrifying—possibility of breeding oversized sentient talking cockroaches from crumbs off Kevin in Cataloguing's tuna sandwiches; they'd gone over every millimeter of every sigil in every single one of the proposed isolation spells about seventy-five times; and having spent three hours watching four people way smarter than him argue over Popper rotations and Greek inflections in a half-dozen proofs Eliot probably couldn't've done in a week and a half with access to the entire Brakebills library had just made him feel—overwhelmed. _Drowning_, honestly—

—even before Lu turns, as they just come into their building's lobby, and says, "—and Eliot, I want those proofs written out. On Tuesday, please": and Eliot.

Swallows.

"Which proofs?" he asks, stomach sinking; even though—he knows already, doesn't he.

Lu rolls her eyes. "Which proofs do you think?" she asks. "You're still weak on isolation theory—well, that was a masterclass, and I know you've done the derivations already, so—you know the answers. I just want to know that you understand how to back them up." She turns to Amahle, eyes sharp: "How far did you get with the windows?"

Eliot shoves his hands in his pockets. Trailing after Georgie, after Amahle, after Lu, into the elevator, and then following all of them into the office.

Cody's still not in. "Sooo," Amahle is saying, sliding out of her coat. "About that renegotiation."

Eliot rubs at his forehead. "The—"; and Amahle sighs. 

"Our _truce_," she reminds him, "I agreed 'til the end of the meeting, not to give you a free pass, so—"

"Uh—yeah," Eliot says. His phone is still in his desk drawer. Quentin's texted him about carrots—oh God, Eliot hopes he's not trying to cook—and Margo's sent a series of thirst trap selfies that he—really can't respond to adequately right now, but—but they're both—fine, obviously; and Cody's just—fucked off, probably, gone to—Encanto Oculto, probably, knowing Cody, to do—magical blow off someone's spell-enhanced tits, or— "Maybe—I have to, uh." Ribs tight, overheated and heavy, Eliot waves a hand: Lu's gone back into her office. Sat down, even though—even though it's after five, on the Friday before a long weekend— "Can I maybe get a raincheck on that?" Eliot asks Amahle; and as soon as she gives him a slow, furrowed-brow nod, he goes to tap on Lu's door.

She looks up; so he sticks his head in. "Hey," he asks. Feeling—Christ, he's still wearing—no wonder he feels so hot. "Do you have a second?" he asks, unwinding his scarf.

She tilts her head, a little; but nods, so he sidles inside, and slides off his coat. 

"I—sorry." He laughs, a little. He should—sit, probably, but— "I, um—I'm really sorry about yesterday?"

Lu's right eyebrow lifts. "Hm," she says; and—his hands twitch.

"No, I—I mean." He laughs. Swallows. Rubbing his hand along—he drapes his coat over the back of the chair. Brushes his knuckles over it. "I didn't—I just. I don't mean to—uh, I feel like I'm about to—mess up again but I also sort of—" He takes a breath, slow. "Have to ask, so—uh. Did Cody call in today?"

Both eyebrows, that time. "If he had, would you expect me to tell you?" she asks, pleasant; and Eliot swallows.

"No," he says. Shaking his head. "But—but I'm still." He takes a breath. "I just want to know if anyone knows that he's okay," he says: calm. Even. Casual, almost, he—thinks— "Because if you haven't heard from him," he says. Easy. "I think someone should check on him, and. And I would be happy to do it."

She takes a breath, and sets her pen down on her desk. 

Looking at him.

"It seems very peculiar to me," she says, after a moment, "that _you_, after everything that's happened this week, should feel the need to take it upon yourself—"

A sudden defensive surge of anger, as Eliot snaps, "It's not his fucking fault"; and then— "_Christ_. Uh—sorry. I—Jesus. God, Sorry. F—damn it." 

Eliot stops. 

He takes a long, slow breath; and then—

He sits down.

"Apologies," he says, "for my language."

"Oh, I don't fucking care," Lu says; and then sighs. Leaning forward, her elbows on her desk, as she looks at him: "Eliot. Do you know Cody's phone number?"

"No." Eliot's tongue is thick.

She nods. "Personal email?"; and he closes his eyes. "Home address?"

"No," he says. Chest tight. "We're not—_friends_, I just—"

She nods again. "Then that's your answer," she says. Low, bladed—. "You need to back off."

He scrubs a hand through his hair. Forward. Back—

"If Cody wanted you to know," she says, "he would tell you": and Eliot—

—swallows, hard, against the knot in his throat, and—

"Okay, no," he says; and then laughs, a little, sliding forward. "No, I—okay, I do understand what you're saying, but—I'm just. I'm worried, okay? Because Cody was—_he wasn't okay_," Eliot says: a sharp, painful knife-edge down his sternum. "He's _not_ okay, he needs—_help_, he needs—"

"Eliot," Lu says; and something inside Eliot—snaps. 

"How can you be so fucking casual about this?" he blurts out. "How can you just—let him—walk out of your office, _hurting_ like that—"

"_Eliot_!" she snaps; and Eliot claws his hands into his hair. "_Stop_," she commands. "_Now_."

Eliot takes a breath. A breath—

"This is _not about you_," Lu says: spiked, harsh; and Eliot laughs, feeling— "But it is, it fucking _is_": _bursting_, "it—it is, it _is_ about me, _Jesus_ it's fucking—it's about _us_, I can't—maybe we're not supposed—to fucking _care_, if some—idiot in our office is falling apart, but—I don't understand how—how you can be that person—": as Lu leans back, hard, in her chair, eyes going—wide— "how you can even—_want_ to be that person—"

"Eliot, the list of things you don't understand about me would _fill the Library_," Lu says, stiletto-sharp; and Eliot sucks in a breath: jagged. Frayed. Scrubbing—his hands over his face, feeling like—like his entire fucking ribcage is just—_cracking open_— 

"Christ." It comes out—in a gasp, almost: Eliot—laughs, unsteady. "God, Lu, I—I'm so sorry, I didn't—"

"_Be. Quiet_," Lu orders, hard; and Eliot.

Is quiet.

After a long, tense moment, Lu says, "_I am not your mommy_, Eliot." Very low, and very harsh; and Eliot—flinches, as she is adding, "And frankly—if you think it is—in _any_ way appropriate for you, as a white man—a very _young_ white man, I might add—to tell me, a woman of color with _thirty years_ of experience, how I ought to manage my staff—": as Eliot's spine snaps into—a line, because he wasn't— "and yes, you _were_," she says: eyes sharp. "You _were_." Her mouth hard. "You came in here, to tell me—and that you feel that you have the _luxury_," she says, barbed, "that you expect—that it'd just be—_fine_, for you to—roll into my office, offering me _advice_—"

"I wasn't," Eliot says, thick. Everything—surging up in him, black and tarry: shame. Despair. "Lu—" when—when he'd follow her anywhere, wouldn't he? and— "I swear I _wasn't_," Eliot is saying: weak and stupid; "I didn't mean to—I just—"

"I don't make a habit of casting muting spells on my apprentices when they're being idiotic": her voice loud-searing-serrated as she says, "but you are making me _seriously consider it as a practice_."

And Eliot, _moron_, gasping—because, because—of all the—stupid fucking times to run his idiot fucking mouth off—

Gasping—

—as he presses the heels of his hands over his eyes.

His heart thuds. Jesus. Jesus, how could he—one. Two. He has to, _three_—

Four.

His—hands—

He breathes in.

Breathes out. 

"Okay," Lu says, after a moment. Her chair creaks, once; and she clears her throat. "Better?" she asks: low, and taut. 

Eliot. Nods.

"Are you listening?" Lu asks, voice sharpening; and Eliot swallows, once—

—and then, mutely, nods.

"Good," Lu says; and then asks, "Are you going to interrupt me again?"

And Eliot—has to fight. His way up, a little: "No," he whispers, and then—tries to swallow, almost. Against his reflexive instinct to add— "—ma'am."

Hot. He flattens his hands over his face. Breathing—

—in out in out in out— _military?_ Ted'd asked, head tilted; and Eliot had—felt his face. Flushing sun-bright-hot.

Across the desk from him, Lu clears her throat.

"That isn't necessary," she tells him; and he.

Nods.

After a second, Lu says, "Eliot, this isn't about—about you as a person, or me as a person, or—anything personal at all. But you are a _very good apprentice_, and an extremely talented young man, and I would be doing you a very grave disservice if I didn't tell you that you _do_ have. A pattern—a _history_, let's say," Lu says, dropping her voice, "of being—inappropriate. With your coworkers, of being bad at—_astoundingly dreadful_ at, honestly—finding the correct level upon which to interact with your colleagues, professionally." She hesitates, for a moment; and then sighs. "Of being astoundingly dreadful at finding that level with _me_," she corrects; and Eliot.

Swallows; and lowers his hands to his lap. 

"I know," he says, roughly. When—when he can. "Christ, I—I know. I'm sorry."

And—aching, excruciating—he forces himself to meet her eyes.

Which are—dark, and pinched at their edges. 

"No, Eliot," Lu says, very low. "That's not enough. Not for this. Stop apologizing, and do better. You need to. You need to do better with _me_."

"I know," Eliot says, quiet. "I'm sorry."

She rubs at her forehead. Mouth pinched; and Eliot swallows. Blinking.

"I'm sorry," he repeats: helpless. Into the silence; and she—

—sighs.

"Can you do those proofs by Tuesday?" she asks, finally; and Eliot looks at her for a long, stretched-thin moment: swallowing against the tsunami surge of—of everything inside him; and then—

—nods.

"Okay," she says. "Then we will discuss them on Tuesday."

He nods, again.

He stands.

He drapes his coat and his scarf over his arm; and—

—and he goes back to his desk.

His desk. The window beside them: black, and swirling with snow: it's—getting late, isn't it. He hadn't noticed. Georgie's gone already, and Raj is packing up; Amahle's still there, though. Stacking her books and notes the way—the way she always does, before she heads home. She pauses, though, and gives Eliot a sharp, curious look; and he manages—a limp smile, of a sort. From.

Somewhere.

"Hot date?" he asks. As lightly as he can. When she tilts her head, he nods at that tiered little stack of folders she always makes, just before she leaves, for the next day—

She pauses. Hand resting—curled, just—on the edge of her desk. 

"It's Friday," she says, after a second. "Five-twenty. I've already been here close to ten hours. You got here _before_ me. Why _aren't_ you packing up?"

"I have those proofs," he explains; and she makes a low, flat sort of noise; but Eliot doesn't—he just doesn't have—_time_, does he? So he just—

"Have a good weekend," he says; and re-angles his desk lamp; as Amahle nods, and murmurs, "Happy New Year."

Eliot swallows. "Thanks," he says. "You too. And, uh—drinks, maybe? Next week?"

She pauses; and then—smirks, a little. "Wouldn't miss it," she says; which means—she wants to drag him about Quentin, but—if Margo's there too, and—and there's so much. There's just—so _much_, he is realizing: there's just—there's so much to do. His chest tight with a small, cowering-animal kind of worry, and—and Lu told him to finish those proofs by Tuesday. More than once: _God_, what she must think of him, so—so he tries to sketch out everything he can remember about the whole—_thing_ that Schiff and Lu had gotten into, about Pham's extension and foundations incorporating 36—and then he has to try to untangle himself on the fucking 90 series, _again_, because—twice in one week, _Christ_ how could he've—been so fucking—_disrespectful_, _God_, he'd've—_smacked_ himself, probably, if he'd been—but. But the important thing. The important thing is—is the proofs, not—not Cody's hideous desk or, or, or—Christ, _Quentin_: probably—trying to cook a carrot, God, Eliot would've left himself ages ago. When he texts, cringing, to tell Quentin he'll be home late, Quentin just says _okay ❤️_, and then texts him a video of a baby giraffe; and Eliot—there's something—he just can't—he puts his phone down. Picks it up. Puts it down again, then picks it up and texts, _You OK?_ even though—Q's fine, obviously, he's—fine, he's just—on YouTube, probably, and—trying to make dinner and hopefully not burning down the apartment and Eliot's just—freaking out about nothing because—because he just—because he's—a massive trainwreck, basically, and Quentin—puts up with him anyway and Eliot's hands are on his phone again: _How was your massage?_, he is asking Margo, because—even though that's not—_important_, is it, not—it's just, Quentin's just been so quiet, all day, he's barely—texted at all, except—except about the—the carrots, and—he'd seemed—_off_, in some—dumb way that Eliot can't articulate and that whole thing is just silly, probably, it's not like—Eliot can tell, really, over text, which is why—they always Skype at least once a week and more when stuff's—been hard, if Q can do it, and God, how can he—_stand_ it? When Quentin—who still hasn't replied, so—_I could bring this home_, Eliot says: his hands are trembling, a little. He probably needs a cigarette: _If you need me, I mean?_

—and his phone buzzes, almost right away: _no, it's okay—real weekend, right?_; and then, almost immediately: _come on, El, I'm not going to get in the way of the work just because I had kind of a crap day. just us a little later, right? ❤️ ❤️ _

And Eliot—

—looks up. 

(—feeling—)

At—

At his desk, strewn with papers; and across from him, Amahle's: with its snowglobe, and its single sharpened pencil, and its tidy for-Tuesday-morning folder stack: because—

(—_stunned_—)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/just_us_a_little_later)

[Just us a little later, right?](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/just_us_a_little_later)

—because Quentin had said _the work_, like—like this was—was fucking _art_: a tight, hard knot, going tighter, at the heart of Eliot's throat. Like Eliot was fucking—_making_ something, something that _mattered_, instead of just—doing punitive fucking _busywork_ instead of something actually _important_—and Eliot, Eliot, of course Eliot knows, he knows, of course he knows that Lu gave him the proofs because he's still so useless on theory and it isn't—it's not like—it's not like they can—do _any_ of this, is it, without that, which is—probably why she let him come along to the Library, even after he'd—been so _fucking_ rude to her yesterday, and—and it _does_ matter, it _does_: it matters—because, oh, whatever, because _art_ matters, truth in all its complexity and the reality of the human condition blah blah blah, but—but Eliot—sitting at his desk in his office after ten hours on the job Eliot just—he just—

—doesn't—

—he just doesn't fucking _care_, does he? 

Because Eliot—Eliot could be fucking—designing the entire building from the ground up himself: he could be—a genius, like Lu, sitting all alone in a big glass office forming every part of it directly from the fundament of his mind—and it still wouldn't fucking _matter_, would it? It wouldn't—live, or breathe, or be—_real_, in any of the ways that—actually count; and Eliot—Eliot would just—he would still just fucking want to _hang out with Quentin_, okay? If Quentin had a bad day; just like—Margo, or—or _Alice_, or _Amahle_, because—because they're _people_, aren't they? So—so they just—they just fucking _matter_, in a way that—that some imaginary architectural mega-genius Eliot with a wall full of awards: nothing _he_ did would actually matter that way, no matter how much he loved it, because you can't—you can't _build a person_. Can you. And people—_people_—a hot, searing line through Eliot's chest: people are just—_important_. Aren't they. They just—are important, they _start out_ important, no matter—how dumb or useless or douchey or irritating they might be, they're just—you can't just—Eliot can't just—_back off_, can he? No matter—_who_ told him to, because—because _people are just fucking important_, okay? Not just—not just Quentin or Margo or Penny or Amahle or, or any of these people who Eliot—actively fucking—likes or cares about or loves _whatever_, just—people: he thinks, aching; even—even fucking—assholes like Cody. Because even _Cody_ is important, no matter—no matter what—_anyone_ thinks: a sore, painful chasm inside Eliot's ribs; yawning open, as he breathes.

He's standing. He's just—standing up. He's not sure why. Lu's office is dark: Eliot's the only person left, isn't he. He didn't—he hadn't even totally noticed. He doesn't remember if—if the fluorescents had been on, when they got back from the Library; but they're off now, aren't they, and in the dark, the office takes on a kind of—menacing surreality: Eliot standing in the thin, buttery glow of his desk lamp like, like a full moon at midnight, with—with dread creeping up the insides of his ribs: it's stupid. He knows that. Quentin's just—read him too much fantasy, but—but with the overheads off, the coat racks and bookshelves loom out of shadow; chairs and file cabinets hunched and crabbed between them; and just—

—just—just a few feet into shadow—

—sits Cody's blank, black void of a desk. 

And Eliot swallows, against that slow, roiling dark wave. 

It's not—it doesn't _mean_ anything. He knows that. A bad feeling is just—just his poorly-managed anxiety and years of bad drug decisions, not—not fucking—_fortune-telling_, but—but his heart. Is _thudding_, slow and wet and heavy, inside the cage of his chest, as Eliot—swallows. Steps into the shadows. Reaches for the switch on the floor lamp sitting beside the seam between Cody's desk and Eunice's: it flares, sharp titanium-white and stinging, and then—goes out. Eliot takes a breath. A breath. A breath—his fingertips resting on the edge of Cody's desk. Trembling, a little: fuck, that spell feels awful. It's like—it sucks away—not just the warmth of his skin, but—but all the _animal_ in him: the urgent, living heat of his heart and his lungs and his blood itself: when Eliot breathes in, the air tastes mineral, metallic. Sharp. 

Fuck. Jesus, it's just—a blown bulb, that's all. A blown-out bulb, on a cold day, in the office that he's worked in every day for half a year; with his right hand resting on the edge of a desk wrapped in an illusion spell that is more or less universally acknowledged as a signal of Cody being a _massive cock_—Eliot lifts his hand. Smoothes down his vest. His phone is still clutched in the left: silent, but warm, a little, from the battery. If he unlocked it, he'd find—Margo, asking him to QA her outfits, since she'd gone shopping so now she was going to have to repack; or Quentin and his giraffe video: _just us a little later, right?_. The both of them—just fucking making—making room for him, Eliot thinks. Just like always, all over again; as he wipes his shaking hands over his face.

Breathing in.

All right, he thinks. 

All right.

The switch for the overheads is by the door, but they're also a little bit like being stabbed in the eye with an icepick, so telekinesis or not: Eliot doesn't bother. Just—doesn't look at Lu's office, when he looks up to wave his desk lamp over instead: its cord just long enough to perch it, a little unsteady, on the corner of Cody's desk. Douchey Vantablack surfacing aside, it's the same split-drafting-table-plus-three-drawer-file-cabinet that all of them have. Eliot could probably rifle it blindfolded, honestly. There's nothing on that blank work surface that could actually hide anything; and the top drawer of the file cabinet is locked. The second drawer down's just got a compass, a ruler, and a pack of green Post-Its: nothing else. If this were Lu's office—well, it isn't, so the file drawer at the bottom is _also_ unlocked: inside, Eliot finds Cody's copy of the caster reference—no use—and two slim leather-bound notebooks: promising, at first, but apparently Cody doesn't feel the need to put his name or phone number in the space for both up front. Behind that, Cody has stashed a pristine multi-colored series of hanging files: all very tidily arranged, all for parts of the project that've ended up getting actually done by someone else. The files don't go all the way to the back of the drawer, though. Do they. Eliot would think, almost, that it was because there aren't enough of them, but—but they don't move very easily, either, do they? Because—because there's something behind them: his throat—there's something. Holding them to the front. Eliot has to use his phone to get enough light to see into the back of the drawer, feeling—tense, for some reason; twitchy; but—but it turns out to just be two boxes of Juul cucumber pods. One unopened. The other's got four torn open, at least one pod missing from each. Also predictable; and absolutely no use. Eliot sighs, shifting his weight back over his feet.

Looking, again, at the locked drawer on top.

Eliot swallows. Lu's office behind him. And—

—and instead: he takes a breath. Twists his hand through the eight quick, decisive motions that define the lock-picking spell he'd learned from Margo and then, a year later, taught to Quentin: both of them completely fucking hammered from about four hours in the park with bottles in paper bags like the delinquents they were—they'd been drinking Beaujolais, but he always hates to mention it, because it sort of ruins the image—probably inappropriately handsy, for a suburban street at two in the morning, and _definitely_ inappropriately giggly: leaning against each other on the front porch of Ted's place in Jersey in December a year ago because Quentin's keys weren't in his pockets, Eliot had checked, and they were both _very_ not interested in going back to the hospital to find them. It's not a difficult spell. Quentin'd been able to learn it falling-down drunk and he'd even remembered it the next morning, so of course Eliot can cast it stone-cold sober just fine: one final crook of his thumb and Cody's top drawer pops, just; and then slides a sliver open. So Eliot takes a breath. Lets it out. Catches at the corner, pulling it out to reveal—

—two $400 Montblanc mechanical pencils, a bunch of dust bunnies, and—predictably—about seventy-four half-used gum erasers. 

Eliot sighs. Rests his forehead against the edge of the desk, closing his eyes, just—just for a second.

Then he closes the drawer. Then—opens it again, to repossess all their fucking erasers, because—because fuck it, what is he even—and then he pushes up to his feet, trying to—to fucking _think_, because stealing Cody's pilfered office supplies from his shoddily-locked desk, well: that one Eliot can probably argue should be filed under junior architect prank wars and probably no one would care enough to debate it with him, but—but what other options does he actually _have_? Not—not _Slack_, where everyone else in the office has posted their cell number in their profile, but not Cody, oh no, of course not; not—not the fucking _caster reference_, which has—all their fucking star signs and places of birth, but not anything fucking _useful_, like—like a fucking _Twitter handle_, or—or an apartment address; and Eliot is, he notes, rubbing at the back of his neck, which is—twinging, painful, an ache creeping up the sides of his neck into his skull while he tries—he tries not to think about—about exactly the thing he's been trying to not look at this entire fucking time: that far and away the most straightforward place in the office to find Cody's contact information wouldn't be—his _if lost please return to_ placard in the front of his notebooks, or a serendipitous forgotten fucking—AT&T bill, _whatever_: because Eliot isn't, actually, a moron; and he does actually know that the one place in the office he's absolutely guaranteed to find Cody's contact information would be in Cody's HR file. Eliot knows that he can get Cody's number from his HR file because _Eliot's_ HR file contains—in addition to his W4, a copy of his official employment contract and job description, and the three pages of leading questions that Amahle had said Lu gives all the first-years to help them develop explicit goals for their apprenticeship—that stupid form, that irritating irritating single sheet that Eliot had filled out with the same tense, half-ashamed feeling he always gets, when asked to write out his fucking full name and his fucking social security number and his home address: even before he, inevitably, has to think for a minute, pen resting on _Emergency Contact_, before he feels like he knows who to write down—he'd listed Frankie, in the end, for now, and felt terrible about it: but Alice had moved into Neitherlands lodgings about 0.07 seconds after Zelda Schiff had invited her to come sniff bookbinding glue with her or whatever it is that Librarians do in their off-hours, and Margo's off-world six days out of every seven; and Penny might be a traveler, but he's still behind the Brakebills wards most of the time and out of cell phone service: behind the wards, finishing his thesis, with Quentin. So Eliot—knows, doesn't he. He knows that—if he really—wants to find it. If it really—actually—_matters_ to him: then Cody's contact information will be in his HR file. Which is—presumably—in the same locked filing cabinet in Lu's office where, back in June, Lu had filed Eliot's. 

Eliot's hands twitch. Prickling, uncomfortable. 

Lu's office walls are made out of glass—tempered, of course, but she's not particularly worried about break-ins and Eliot's got a storied past; so even if he _couldn't_ pick the lock on her door in about three minutes flat (which he definitely can), getting in _still_ wouldn't exactly be a problem. He could just—smash it, couldn't he. Smash—the whole fucking _thing_: smash it to pieces, throw a, a—a lamp, or a chair, or—or Amahle's fucking snowglobe, right through the wall; and Eliot's been light-fingered since _well_ before he had magic to back it up, so—so it would be easy. Wouldn't it. And—_fuck_ Lu Ximénez: a seasick wet prickle washing its way up through the bones of Eliot's face; just—just _fuck_ her—her pop quizzes and her l-lectures and her proofs, due January second, all this fucking—_trivia_, that _doesn't fucking matter_, _not one fucking bit_, not if—not if—just, fuck it, fuck _everything_, fuck every fucking part of the entire fucking—_enterprise_: fuck her and him and her rock-solid fucking certainty that she was right and him for believing it, even if—even though—just. _Fuck_ it, he thinks: fuck _all_ of it; and presses, splayed open, his trembling hands to the glass.

He can see it. _Finance_, it says, on the top drawer in the file cabinet on the left; and then: _Personnel_, underneath.

He breathes.

Breathes.

Breathes—

And then he takes a step back, and pulls out his phone.

"Really?" Margo asks, a ring and a half later. "_Really_, Eliot? Literally _zero_ help with my packing, but _now_ you call, when I'm _on my way out the door_—"

"Can you—help me with something?" he asks.

Around. The knot. In his throat.

"Yeah," Margo says, after a minute. "Of course, El."

Eliot ducks his head. 

Silent.

"Okay," she says. "Uh—Q okay?": and Eliot lets out a breath.

"Yeah," he says, thick. "Yeah, he's—texting me Zooborns, so."

"Your mom?" she asks, cautious; and Eliot laughs.

Says, "Fine, probably": scratchy; and then swallows. "Sorry," he says. "Sorry, no, it's—long day. It's not a big deal. It's just—do you have enough fast-draw rations to cast Yeatman's Remote Recorder for me? I'm, uh. Too close."

A breath.

"Sure," she says, after. "I never use all of mine, anyway. Um—you mean. For Chicago?"

"Yeah," Eliot says, trying to remember—he hadn't said where he lived, had he? River North, probably. Wrigleyville. "For, um. Cody—uh, I'm actually not sure if that's a nickname?"

"It works best on the most common form of address, anyway," she says; and he nods.

"Okay, so—Cody, then, Cody—uh, Cody Meakin": because—Amahle had said, hadn't she. "Probably currently inside Chicago city limits; born, um—" He twists. Fumbles around to grab his caster reference: page 4, staff circumstance charts, and then traces down: "—January 7, 1988, in California. Uh—91020. Wait, 91020?" Eliot asks. "Is that like—Beverly Hills's little brother, or—"

"I think it's Glendale," Margo says, absently, then asks, "Left or right handed?"; which—shit, that isn't on the caster charts, for some reason, even though—so Eliot twists to look at Cody's desk, again, like _that's_ going to be any help. Not even a pen cup. Eliot rubs his face, trying to think. Cody doesn't take notes in meetings, either—he was second in his year, you know, at the Chantesonnerie—but—well, he's put the file cabinet on the right side of his desk, which is—suggestive, at least; and he'd been leaning against the wall of the stall with the toilet paper: it had _looked_ like his lead arm, probably, on that side, so— 

"Right-handed," Eliot says. "I think?"

"Hold on," Margo says, and Eliot can hear her fussing around, pulling out drawers, the scrape of a jar: "Fuck, I haven't cast this since—do you remember whether you cut in from the north, or—"

"Sand from the north, but for the actual casting sequence it doesn't matter": Eliot shifts in his chair, feeling prickly, impatient: she'd remembered fine back in first year, but—well. He picks up his cup, while Margo gives that little thoughtful working hum of hers, and then falls silent. Eliot can practically—_taste_ it, can't he: that round-meaty almost-sweetness, burning down his throat; he sips his coffee, then grimaces, swallowing: he bought that before the meeting. It'd probably stopped being drinkable something like five hours ago.

"Okay," she says, after a minute. "It's 1546 North LaSalle Drive, Apartment—do you want me to text this to you?"

"Please." He swallows: a vast, clenching-unclenching fist around his chest. "Did it get a phone number?"

"Two," she says. "Well—three, but I think one's your, uh, office—the other two are both 773 area codes."

"That's Chicago too," he confirms. "Can you text those? I don't care about his—well, I hope I don't n—fuck it, can you just send all of it to me?"

"Yeah," she says; and then: "Oh, man, does he have a _landline_?" Gleeful. "I didn't think anyone bothered anymore."

Eliot swallows. "Hookup phone, I bet," he says, as lightly as he can manage; and then rubs at his face. "Thanks, Margo. Um—I'd better—talk later?"

"I mean, maybe," she says, faux-casually. "If I don't get any better offers."

He nods. Swallowing. "I—okay," he says. "Fair, can you just—"

"The second you hang up," she says, in a tone he can't read; so Eliot—hangs up.

Yeatman's works by the amount of time someone spends somewhere, and not any more traditional magical definitions of domicile, which Eliot—had forgotten, honestly, until he's scanning down the spell-writing past their office address and that LaSalle apartment to a third address, in Old Town, that Eliot's about 90% sure is for that terrible bar Amahle took him to back in August, where she told that dude with the popped collar that she was a lesbian so he told her she could bring her girlfriend, and they charged Eliot eight dollars for a pretzel—but that. Doesn't matter. Does it. Eliot doesn't remember any of the more specific success constraints for Yeatman's—does it prioritize by frequency or not?—so he texts a quick _Hey Cody this is Eliot_ to the first one, and then—antsy, back prickling, checks the clock: seven oh-four. He rubs at his face and goes to—to toss out his coffee cup, fuck it, because—maybe he won't have a job on Tuesday and he probably can't finish those proofs but he's not a fucking _animal_, is he? When he checks his phone again coming back it's 7:08, no reply. He thinks, briefly, about calling, but—well. Eliot, like every kid at Brakebills, had had that whole forty-five minute stretch in second semester, right after they'd learned Yeatman's, where a magic spell that let you look up the full name and complete contact information of anyone in the world, as long as they were more than forty-seven miles away from you and you knew their birthday and a couple other not-actually-all-that-intimate details, had seemed like the best fucking invention in the world: you could text Channing Tatum! DM President Obama's private Twitter! Call that jerk who'd dumped you back in high school just to lord it over him how great you were doing now, how shitty his life was, relative to—: but the reality of Yeatman's is that Obama is so heavily warded that you couldn't get anywhere near his private contact info with a spell so simple you teach it as a beginning example of how to stack influence circles; and _no one_ picks up when they don't recognize the number. Which is—honestly: _honestly_, Eliot thinks—_fuck_ what Lu said. Because _that's_ the measure of it, probably: not—not whether or not someone gave you their info, though—fine, yes, casting Yeatman's is definitely sleazy, in the more abstract sense, but—but the _real_ measure, Eliot thinks, for whether or not someone wants to talk to you is just straight up whether or not they text back. Except—

—except 7:08 becomes 7:13, and then 7:21; and Eliot feels—pulled taut. Wired up: because—because the thing about—about needing to text someone to—to ask if they're okay is—you can't take no answer as an affirmative. Can you. 7:24, and Eliot's phone buzzes: Quentin, sending him video of a baby fruit bat: and Eliot shudders all over pushing the heels of his hands to his eyes and trying—trying so fucking desperately, not—not to think—

—about how long it'd taken. Two hours and change, between—between Eliot, in Lu's office—_more_, if you count—the first time Eliot checked Cody's profile on Slack, which had been at like—ten fifteen in the morning, Jesus, and—and Eliot is. Trying, so fucking hard, to not think about—about everything that could happen, between ten-fifteen in the morning and seven-twenty-six at night: like Eliot—didn't fucking know, like he couldn't've—_seen_ it, like it didn't—fucking _crawl in_ and make its home _inside of_ him, ages ago: that terror that lives under his skin. But Eliot—he still—he still just fucking _did what he was told_, didn't he? He was still—so much of a fucking coward that—that he just—_did what he was told_: his sternum, cracking right down the middle; and Eliot—pushes up to his feet, and grabs—his satchel, his scarf, has to set them both down again to get his coat on and then wrestles himself back into the scarf on his way out the door, fumbling his key into the lock without using his hands but then of course he has to _un_lock the door again to mentally flick the his desk lamp off because—because he's just straight-up fucking shitty at doing it without line of sight and—and how long had he just fucking _sat_ there, waiting for—for something to just—_fix_ it for him, as though—as though that ever would actually—as though if he hadn't thought of Yeatman's, or calling Margo to cast it, as though he'd _ever_ have had the balls to, to pick the lock, to throw that fucking snowglobe, because—because he wouldn't've, would he? He's too fucking—stupid, too self-centered, too cowardly to do—_any_ of it, and then, _then_: then how much time had he wasted, hm? fucking _searching Cody's fucking desk?_ As though—as though that were _ever_ going to tell him _anything_, he thinks: hammering on the button for the elevator again—again, again—before running flat-out for the stairs instead: even Eddie's gone home, the front desk lights dim; just Tim the night guard who calls, "Happy New Year!" after him and Eliot—half a block later—honestly can't fucking _remember_ what he said, if he said anything at all: the cold slamming into him over and over, a solid right hook on Eliot's every single fucking step: how many seconds and minutes and, and _hours_, Christ, just—an entire fucking—_day_ of—of just—_blindly fucking obeying_, because—because Lu told him to drop it and Lu, _Lu_ had been—

—she had been—

—like a mother to him, he thinks, painful: sharp with something that hurts too much to even really count as irony; and then laughs: a wild, ripped-away ribbon of something sanguine and essential inside him, vaporizing in the breeze.

Because—because Eliot had _never_ thought of her like that. Not ever. Not really. Not _once_, no matter _what_ she fucking said, not until—because _Christ_, it wasn't like—anyone he knew was exactly—overflowing with affection, filial _or_ maternal, were they? Julia's mother _literally_ drives her to drink; and Margo's mom left so long ago Margo doesn't even remember what it's appropriate for her to be bitingly scornful about; and Penny's moms are so oppressively overinvested in his career prospects that Penny ran away from Harvard on his sixteenth birthday and washed up three years later _somewhere_, Penny always says, mouth twisting, _south of Jacksonville_; and the day of Ted's memorial service, Margo'd pulled the seat of Ted's ancient Volvo all the way forward so she could drive to the Costco in Wayne to pick up the booze and Julia'd shown up eight minutes later with about seventeen trays of overly elaborate WASP canapes and Penny'd even put on a fucking shirt and set out to be charming with all the denizens of suburban fucking New Jersey, just so that Eliot would have both hands free to fucking—to fucking _hold Quentin up_ through that horrible fucking _gauntlet_ of Ted's colleagues and former interns and fellow model airplane nerds—which was apparently a real thing on the internet, like Ronald Reagan fetish enthusiasts—because if _they_ didn't do it, no one else was fucking going to, were they? Because Val, fucking _Val_, Quentin's _actual fucking mother_ had just fucking—done _exactly what Eliot had expected_, and Quentin, too, which was worse: she'd shown up forty-five minutes late, spent half an hour opining a little too loudly about Ted's post-divorce sex life to four people who'd known him from work, and then she'd finally come over to talk to Quentin _entirely_ and _exclusively_ for the purpose of sadly informing him that she wished he'd shaved a little more carefully, and couldn't he've even ironed his shirt?; and then she'd left, while Eliot took Quentin into the guest room to just—be _quiet_, Quentin had said, unsteady, into Eliot's chest, _for—for like—fifteen fucking seconds_: while out on the lawn Julia and Kady were physically restraining Margo: not fast enough to save her favorite Balenciaga pumps, but at least they'd managed to keep her from setting fire to Val's departing car. Christ: a _mother_? Eliot hadn't even _spoken_ to his mother in five years before this year, Christmas Eve: the last thing he fucking _needs_ is _another_ one. But this—_this_: to think for six fucking months—no, _longer_: ever since—ever since he first met Lu, back in second year, at Alumni Day: when he'd gotten into that argument with Katherine Witherspoon about Félix González-Torres and Lu'd waited until Eliot had said, _—because it's just fucking _easier_, to love people after they're done dying, isn't it, than it is to really be _with_ them while they live_; and when Ms. Witherspoon had swanned off in a huff for more rosé, Lu had looked up at Eliot, head tilted, and asked, _What's your name?_

Stopped. At a light: squinting, through the snow; Eliot's breath is coming in harsh, sharp pants, his fingers fucking _freezing_, even through the twinned layers of his pockets and his cashmere-lined gloves. When the light changes he moves with the rest of his little clumped herd of miserable commuters, cutting over down Division: half of them peeling off for the idling 70 and the rest, a half-block later, for the stairs to the L; but Eliot keeps—he keeps just—just fucking _pushing through_ it: with—with his _heart_, and his _lungs_: six fucking months, almost two and a half years; and—and all that time, he had thought—he had thought that Lu—

—that Lu had hired _all_ of him. 

He'd thought that she'd wanted—the person who'd fought through his slightly stunned surprise when she'd given him her name, who'd talked to her about—about all those things: aching; that she'd pulled out of him; and had thought she'd listened. To him going on about—about the part of performing that he _had_ loved, and hadn't—really ever properly _left_: craving that sense of—_making_ something, _with other people_: with people who—weren't _like_ you, precisely, but who didn't need to be, because—because you showed up together to make something and that was the point: what was born, from the way you put yourselves, willingly, into each other's hands. And Eliot—Eliot had never thought, not in a million _years_ would he have thought, that she—that she could _hear_ that, and follow it up with a job offer, to a _second_-year: portfolio and transcript unimportant, waved away, accepted sight unseen; and then that _same fucking person_ could just—just turn out to be so, so fucking —

—_heartless_: tearing out of him. Ripping—

—ripping a cavern out of his chest: that she could be so heartless that—that she would just—that all her _spines_, all—all that fucking—_armor_—electric, that realization; dizzying—would turn out to be _real_: not just—not just the mask that—that they put on to, to fucking _get through the day_, but—but something that is _actually_ and _intrinsically_ her. Lu Ximénez, in truth. Because—_not_, Eliot thinks, very sharp: not because she was—_supposed_ to care for Cody, not because—she's the fucking mother-hen figure to their ragtag band of misfits—God, the _very thought_ makes Eliot throw up a little in his mouth—not even because she's their _boss_: but just because—because Cody is a _person_, a _person who she knows_. A _person_, Eliot thinks, who is a—a _part of her life_; and anyway, _fuck_ supposed to, anyway! Just—fuck it, completely! Forever! Fuck the people you're _supposed_ to care about, because—because where does _supposed to_ fucking _get_ you? What fucking happens, Eliot thinks, face and eyes stinging in the cold, when the people who are _supposed to_ care about you just—just l-leave you, or _die_, or—or just—or just are _supposed_ to care about you, and just fucking _don't_? _What fucking then?_ And Christ, Christ, he's just—he's just—he's just so fucking—

—_angry_, he realizes: with a harsh, gravitational impact, deep in the center of his bones: _fuck_, he's angry, he's fucking—_furious_: that buzz, low and volcanic, popping and fizzing under his skin: that's anger. Isn't it. It's anger, and it's anger that is, in fact, _familiar_: because this is Eliot, just at the leading edge of realizing that he is volcanically, catastrophically _furious_, because he can't want to be the person who doesn't give a shit as long as the project gets done and thirteen hours ago, he could've _sworn_ that _Lu_ couldn't want to, either; and, yeah, fine, Eliot's like every other millennial with a liberal arts degree and no trust fund: he comes into work every day because he fucking has to, yes, _fine_, he came into work _this_ morning because of his rent and his groceries and his student loans and that hard-won embryonic seed of a savings account that he was starting to scratch together, somehow, just barely, at 70% of standard first-year Brakebills grad pay; but thirteen hours ago, if anyone had insinuated that Lu might dismiss the well-being of even the very worst of her employees, Eliot would've defended her with every breath in his body and believed it; and _that_ was why he came into work for _her_. 

But instead.

But instead, she turned out to be just another fucking jackass who was so fucking sure that she was right that she wouldn't—she couldn't even _listen_ to him, when he—when he was trying to—to _tell_ her, to _explain_—something—something _important_—

He hammers on the button for the crosswalk. Twice, because—because he doesn't have anywhere else to _put_ it, does he? This fucking—slow, crushing avalanche, of his own fury at himself, that slow, seething vortex of disappointment and rage: that he had been stupid enough to trust her so totally; and that, when he did, that this was the person she asked him to be. A person who—who backed down, and _didn't_ call, and _didn't_ push; who thought that—that his own stupid fucking job was more important than—than _another fucking human being_; who could just—ignore his own instincts, all fucking day, all the way until it was—nearly eight o'clock and maybe—maybe no one had talked to Cody in something like _twenty-six hours_—

And. And his phone. Buzzes in his pocket, so—

—so he ducks into a doorway. Heart pounding: shivering, panting, as he fishes it out. He can't—unlock it, not with—he fumbles his way through enough of a warming spell that he can take a glove off, at least, telling himself that—that it's Quentin, probably, or—or Margo—

—but it isn't.

Is it. 

It is, instead, Cody, who—forty-nine minutes later—has texted him a single, laconic _sup_.

And Eliot.

Takes a breath.

And looks out at the snow.

Still falling, in slow, fluttering drifts: the white, veiling blur of it, all down the street. The Christmas lights are still up, on—on at least half the buildings: it's. Pretty, probably, he thinks. He's not sure. His face is numb. He must've—missed it. Probably. All the—caroling, or whatever, all through December, when Amahle had kept saying, _Dude, it's not like I believe in White Jesus or whatever, but even I can appreciate a sixty-two foot blinged-out fir tree_—

He blinks. Looks back down at his phone screen. It still says:

_sup_

Conversation with Cody Meakin. 7:53. No punctuation, even: Christ. _sup_: what is Cody, fifteen? It always makes Eliot—resentful, a little. That—people like them can get away with it, but— 

_You OK?_ Eliot picks out: cold, slow, a little clumsy; and then—

—then he hesitates: thumb hovering, just over "Send."

_I was concerned_, he adds instead, after a second, _when you didn't come into work_.

There. There, he thinks: there. That was—honest, isn't it? Insofar as it went. Or at least—

_lu said I should take today off if I could get in @ the dr_, Cody replies—almost immediately, that time; and Eliot.

Can feel it: all the air jerking out of his lungs.

He stares down at his phone. Buzzing, again—

_she said u asked after me when she called 2nite_, Cody adds; and then, implausibly, _thanks, bro_.

And Eliot.

Tips his head back, breathing in deep: and blinks up again at the numbers over the doors to the building, black back-light golden: 1500, just rounding the corner onto the west side of North LaSalle Drive.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Eliot takes a Lyft home. Fuck his budget: it's late enough that the traffic is lightening up, actually; and—and he can't face the L. Not tonight. 

He staggers in through the apartment door about half past eight, and practically runs into the honeycombed side of the clock: which is—on the wall; and Eliot—blinks at it, for a second, trying to figure out—why. Because. That seems weird, except—

"El?" Quentin leans backwards into the hall; then—straightens. "Hey, you—" coming over— "I _thought_ I heard the d—" 

He _oof_s, slightly, when Eliot pulls him in against his chest. 

Pressing. His face down. Heart beating, beating: when he touches his forehead to Quentin's.

Quentin pulls back, just a little. To set—then he puts his arms back around Eliot's waist and it doesn't—matter, anymore. Eliot closes his eyes. Breathes in. Breathes out: overheating slowly, his arms where they go around Quentin: still wearing his steaming damp coat. 

Eliot clears his throat. Pulls back. "Hey," he says, scratchy; and Quentin tilts his head. 

Studying him. Quiet.

Eliot shakes his head, closing his eyes; and Quentin lets out a slow, soft breath.

Hooks his fingers in between Eliot's buttons. Tugs, a little; so Eliot—gets himself together: enough, at least, to get himself out of his coat. 

Quentin helps. Scarf. Face: he rubs his thumb over Eliot's mouth, left to right. Right to left. Left to right. "Want dinner?" Quentin asks, quiet.

"Um." Eliot rubs at his face. Dinner. Yes, probably that—would help. "Yeah," Eliot says, "let me just—hang up this up."

Quentin looks at him for a long, long moment; then nods, and—and reaches over to the top of the dresser in Eliot's closet, to collect—a bowl. It was a bowl, Eliot is realizing; he'd been holding—a mixing bowl, like. The patterns, all over his clothes. Or, whatever. The Quentin in the clock, who isn't—Quentin. Eliot does know that. He's just. Tired, that's all. It's. It's not a big deal. He hangs up his coat and his satchel. He unties his boots and tucks his stuff from his coat into his trouser pockets—phone; smokes—and then—then they _catch_ at him, don't they? The two little figures tucked close together, just behind the glass: just the same. Always. The—fixed center of that world, aren't they. 

Behind them, standing like a pillar, the woman in the scarf—

—no. Cape. It's a cape, isn't it? With—with its long trailing ends.

Blowing wild out into the wind. 

Eliot swallows. Pulls his vest straight, and then follows the ever-present tug of Quentin's presence into the kitchen.

"Wait, you cook that—_before_ it goes into—" Quentin is saying—laughing, a little, too. Which—

"_Yes_, you have to cook it before—_honestly_, Quentin," Rachel is saying, exasperated. "Who on Earth taught you to cook?"

"Uh. My dad?" Quentin squints, a little. "Uh—he was mostly. A warm-it-up-and-stir kind of guy, though, so—"

"Good grief," Rachel says, shaking her head; but—she's laughing, too, isn't she. "Okay, well—since Eliot apparently hasn't—taken the time to teach you anything useful, _honestly_, then _yes_, Quentin, you have to cook the macaroni _before_ you mix it with the cheese—": still fucking—laughing, because—

—because Eliot is so tired that he is, he knows, having a hard time parsing out—the cutting board, the knife, the heap of cheese in his mixing bowl with—with carrot rounds in a cereal bowl and a mug with a blob of—sour cream, he knows, without—even _asking_, or touching it or tasting it or mixing it into the roux while his mom is cutting the carrots which is—Quentin's job, now, _apparently_: slicing one into clumsy rounds while his mom stirs the pasta in Eliot's big pot, with—with the peas. Right there. Just-defrosted, still-dripping, in the colander over the sink; and Eliot—that's. His mom—_always_ serves carrots with—macaroni and cheese, and—puts peas in it, which—he can't even. _Eat_ that anymore, he doesn't think; except—here she is, fucking—indoctrinating the love of his life into how to—make heart-attack pasta, just—just how he's always—

"He did teach me how to boil an egg," Quentin protest, half-laughing.

"Doesn't count unless you can poach them," Rachel notes. And—

—huh, Eliot thinks.

He is—_aware_, in that far-off insignificant way that he's _aware_ that the sun rises in the east and the snow will melt, someday, that he's still—angry. For some reason. But—but he shouldn't be. Should he. It's just—leftovers, isn't it: from—from all the bullshit with—with Lu, who he shouldn't be angry with either, not when—she _did_ talk to Cody, didn't she; and not—

—when Quentin is—

—laughing so hard he has to set the knife down; huh, Eliot thinks, I'm angry. That's interesting. 

"Come on," Quentin says, "_Margo_ can't even poach an egg to his standards, and she wanted to be a celebrity chef, back in elementary school—," turning as he says, "El—come on, are you just going to let her—": looking up; and then Quentin.

Stops.

"I—yeah." Eliot scrubs a palm over his face. "I—sorry, I'm not—actually all that hungry, actually, I think I'm just going to—"

He holds up his cigarettes, and sidles over towards—his Uggs, the door, the fucking—howling arctic void—

"Yeah," Quentin says, gentle; and Eliot nods, and doesn't look at them, like—like he doesn't notice, when Rachel steps towards him, and Quentin reaches out to catch her wrist.

The wind is still a low, grumbling roar. Driving stinging-sharp prickles of snow over the railing, smarting against—his face, his bare hands: he casts to light his cigarette and again to—to keep himself something like halfway alive instead of just—freezing to death, right fucking there, texting Margo on the fire escape, twice, while he smokes his second cigarette in twenty minutes: after—after the one he'd devoured, half-blind, on his way up to the front door: just getting more and more nauseated, while inside he can—he can hear them, can't he, because—because the kitchen always gets really hot when the oven's on so they've cracked the window so he can hear it when Quentin tells Rachel, "Just give him a minute," pitched low; and she says—something Eliot doesn't want to hear and Quentin says, "No—Rachel, please, he's not—" but she doesn't listen, does she, she just—_follows_ him, because he can't fucking—

"What's wrong?" Rachel asks; and Eliot.

Takes a breath.

"Can I just." He takes a breath. "Have a second, I had—a not-great day, I just—"

And Rachel's breath catches, audible; and then—she draws it in, slow, and steps—closer to him. "El," she says, pitched low, fucking—_gentle_: like—like she actually—; "it's—it's okay": and Eliot—laughs, because—because that's—that's it, isn't it? It's okay, it's just fucking—fine, everyone's fine, everything is fine, it's always fucking fine except how he can't ever fucking—_get away_, can he—he just—she just keeps fucking—_coming_ for him, _relentless_— 

"Maybe I can help," Rachel says; and Eliot—

—turns,

around

and around

around that low ballooning hollow feeling: "How," he asks, "like—all the other times you helped me, you mean?": the bottom, falling out of the world. "Like—the funeral, maybe?" he asks: light; as she flinches; and Eliot—shouldn't, he shouldn't, he _shouldn't_—_like_ it, should he: that instant hot rush of _satisfaction_: "Or the blanket," he suggests. Happy. Cheerful. _Fine_— "That—that fucking _hideous_ rainbow blanket, and the way—the way you made absolutely sure I knew, didn't you, that I needed to—to hide everything I—_made_, everything I—_was_, for an entire fucking—_decade_": dizzy. Floating up—_up_: "_More_, probably, that—that was _very_ helpful," Eliot says. Nodding: "definitely. Definitely just—a _huge_ fucking help, like—like the way you—_helped me_ screen my friends, to make sure that they were—the _right_ friends, didn't you": he laughs, again. "From church, or—school, but only if you were—absolutely sure they wouldn't—_help_ me be—anything you didn't want me to be": her wide, wounded brown eyes: _good_, he thinks: roaring inside of him, _good, good, I'm just—so—fucking _glad— "Or the way you _helped me_ get away for rehearsals," Eliot adds, laughing; "and _helped me_—tell everyone I was building sets, so—so no need to come, honestly, that was—a _huge_ help," laughing and laughing: "for just—all those weeks of explaining to everyone in the cast that no, no, I didn't need any guest tickets, no one, no one was—coming for me, even when I was fucking—starring in _Les Mis_": breathless with it, laughing—so fucking hard he feels—sick, _sick_ with it: "Yeah, you were—_such_ a help," Eliot tells Rachel, "all those—fucking years, years and years and years, of you—teaching me to—to l-love everything b—everything I—I could make, to w-wa—and then to _hide_, because that's how _you_ did it, wasn't it?": that sharp crimson slash of color, across her fair cheeks. "Blend in," Eliot says, "nod along—because who fucking _cares_ about living, when you could just—_survive_, so, _God_, you were just—_so fucking good_ at helping me, you—taught me to be—such a fucking coward, just—just keep _everything_ about me—a fucking _secret_, because—because that was easier than—than learning how to look yourself in the face, because—because then maybe someday you'd have to look me in mine." And it's—amazing, honestly, how—_unburdening_ it feels, Eliot is thinking: like— "you _helped me_ for so long—" like—tossing all his worldly possessions out the window— "for—for seventeen fucking years, didn't you? _Helping me_ get—to youth group, and—church": or setting them—on fire: "God, did you even _believe_ it?" he asks; and then laughs, again. "Fucking—_any_ of it, did you—just teach me to—love everything beautiful and then—be ashamed of every fucking part of it while I was—turning into—the kind of coward who—did you believe—any of it? Any of the—bullshit they—_taught_ me, any of the bullshit you—_helped me learn_ because—Jesus fucking Christ, Mom!" Pushing—back, away, lighting— "Yeah, you sure as hell fucking _helped me_," Eliot says; and takes a long unsteady drag, "you—spent seventeen fucking years helping me have a solid, traditional fucking family with two fucking parents in fucking—_Whiteland, Indiana_ and then you fucking—and yeah, that was a big fucking help, Mom, having to—deal with all that bullshit alone for—for six fucking months before he finally fucking—_croaked_ and I don't even fucking know why you _did_ it, Mom!" Laughing. Laughing so fucking hard he— "Any of it! You kept us both there for—seventeen fucking years, and all that time, _all that time_, you—you _knew_ people in Chicago, you had—_friends_, friends who're—good enough to pull you back from—from fucking Seattle—_Seattle_, Mom?—so you could've—_taken_ me, we could've—_run away_ but instead—instead you—you fucking _left_ me," Eliot tells her, and it's not—it's not even why he's _angry_, it's not, it's _not_: "And I—I don't know why you did—any of it," he gasps, wiping— "I don't, I don't even—know why you married him in the first place": at his face, even though—he's laughing, isn't he. Because—the whole fucking thing is just so fucking— "I don't know why anyone would've—fucking talked to that bastard in the street": _hilarious_, God, Jesus Christ. "I don't know why you did—any of it," Eliot tells her, "I don't even know why you're _in Chicago_"; and then—laughs. Shaking his head. "If—you're not—good enough friends to even—crash on _her_ fucking couch, why did you—_do_ it, why'd you just—_show up_, why are you—acting like my _mom_, why do you keep—pretending that everything's _okay_ with us? Why are you even—_here_?"

He laughs, wet and ragged. Feeling like—tattered paper, scribbled on and erased over and over and over until he was fuzzy and transparent and then soaked in gasoline set on fire put through a garbage disposal, eaten by a cat and then thrown up in someone's petunias; like—scraps and ashes, unwanted—garbage—

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/garbage)

[—scraps and ashes, unwanted—garbage—](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/garbage)

—and Rachel meets his eyes.

"Because my mom has cancer," she says.

Perfectly steady.

And it's—

—weird, Eliot thinks. 

That's the first thing he thinks: it's weird. It's just—it's a weird thing to say. It's not like—he had any idea what she was going to say, but—but he was pretty sure that it was going to be—

—not that.

After a second, Rachel says, "She lives in Skokie"; and then laughs, tense, shaking her head. "Still in the—the same goddamned house I grew up in, but—I hadn't." Breathing in, deep. "I hadn't talked to her in—uh, a really—really long time, and then—one of my sisters tracked me down, to—to tell me I needed to get the test, the genetic—anyway," she says, and then pushes her hair back: her cheeks—burning red: from the cold, he thinks: worried in a—far-away, confused kind of way, because. Because she doesn't have a coat, and then: _—sisters_? he thinks; and.

—the present tense?

"We didn't talk," Rachel says, very steadily. "After—after I left. Not until—October, honestly, and—and I—I didn't want to wait until I was seventy-five and maybe-dying, Eliot." A deep, slow breath; Rachel says, "To try and make things right with you."

And Eliot.

Looks at her.

That white-hot blaze of his anger, just—contracting. Collapsing in on itself, to leave him—just—just standing on his fire escape, underdressed, in a blizzard, while his mom says—all of fucking _that_; opening—opening this _void_ inside of him: just—just another family—black fucking hole: her saying—like that—_fixes_ it, like—like that's anything other than—coming in and—and dropping—a bomb. Just—a _bomb_, fucking _nuclear_, like—like he'd asked for—all of it, _any_ of it!: exploding outward from his center, ripping through—his skin and his veins and his _heart_; all this—this fucking _family bullshit_ she's dropped on him like—like telling him about—about his, his long-lost grandma and, and his aunt—_aunts_?—Jesus, does she have—_brothers_, or—her dad, or—like, like all of this isn't just—the worst kind of—

—of emotional blackmail, he is thinking: heart pounding, tense and sodden, twisted; trampled underfoot: Jesus _fucking_ Christ. Because—because who—who fucking _does_ that, anyway? Just—just _dumps_ that on someone, like—like a dirty fucking bomb, in the middle of—his already fucking terrible fucking Friday, like—like it wasn't bad enough to come home to her—giving Quentin happy housewife lessons, making him—_happy_: that searing-hot agonized gash, ripping Eliot apart: giving him this—this fucking—_family_, this fucking—_gift_, that she just—shows up and promises him, when Quentin is just—too fucking trusting to realize that—that it isn't—_real_, is it, just—

—just another fucking thing.

That they'll take away.

"Okay," Eliot says, and then—

—he goes back inside. He gets his coat. He gets—

"El," Quentin says, behind him, quiet; and Eliot—shakes his head.

"Can you—I just, I need to get—away from her, for a minute," he says, thick; and Quentin touches—the small of his back, the bent crabbed back of his neck.

"Yeah," Quentin says, quiet. "Go on": and Eliot, frantic, wraps an arm around him to press—a feverish kiss to his forehead; and then.

Flees.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Margo does reply, finally, while Eliot's fumbling out a twenty to pay Kieran at the Whirlaway: Kieran winks at him; and Eliot just—can't, so instead he takes himself back to the farthest-back table, in the closest thing you can find to a dark corner in this—entire fucking bar. 

Last week. All last week. All last week Eliot'd been coming down to the bar very last thing, after—work and dinner and two fucking hours working on Quentin's—and Kieran'd always been good for an opinion, at least, most of them scathingly abusive, but other than Kieran being six feet tall and a giant, beardy redhead, it was basically exactly like getting artistic feedback from Margo, so—so Eliot'd taken it. He'd taken it, and been grateful: story of his fucking life. At least Kieran doesn't have an ulterior motive, probably; except—_New Year's_, Kieran had said, laughing: handing him a flier; _Take him out. Show him the city_; and then leaned over the bar, and kissed Eliot's cheek. Now Margo's back from Fillory but entire galaxies away: texting him, _just because you're too much of a loser to figure out how to get your dick wet with your mom inside city limits doesn't mean you can text me in prime pickup time, asshole_, she's said; and then, _you okay?_; and Eliot—sets his phone face-down on the table and takes—a sip of bourbon. Holds it in his mouth. He takes a long, slow breath in through his nose, pushes it out; then closes his eyes.

Swallows.

He takes another breath; then turns his phone up. Another text from Margo: _or do you just need pointers_, she's added; and then, _ask him to explain to you about discworld religions some more. that always gets him hot_: and Eliot.

Swallows, throat tight; and then thumbs out: _Shitty day_.

Clumsy, and slow. Autocorrect wants him to send her "shifty" instead, but he catches it, for fucking once. His thumb hovers, indecisive, over the send button; and his phone buzzes: tingling in his hand. _or are you still at work?_ she asks. _seriously? on a friday? what's your damage, el?_; and Eliot.

Sets his phone down. Picks it up. Sets it down again. He's not—

He's not—he's not actually sure, is he? what his damage is. Honestly, he should just—_tell_ her, how hard could it—_be_, except—except that without knowing _why_, exactly, he knows—that it is. It just is. It _always_ is, when he actually has to—to _explain_ himself to her, instead of just—turning up somewhere she can see and having her fucking _dismantle_ him, one look: what would he even fucking _say_? _I had a fight with my mom_? Who fucking cares? _I have a grandma_? Margo'd just—_look_ at him, honestly: Eliot thinks he'd probably—be able to feel the scorn in that expression even with—with two iPhones and a thousand miles between them. _My mom's—mending her own goddamned fucking fences, and she—feels like she has the right to mend them with me_? He can't—_say_ that. It's hard to—imagine. Something that would make Eliot sound more like—like the self-absorbed, whiny toddler he—feels like, half the time; or—or something—

—less adequate, honestly.

His phone buzzes. _I've got a blonde in my bathroom, you know_, Margo says. _is this a "give her free access to the bar cart" sort of a silence, or is it more a "sorry bambi, you're not getting fisted tonight"?_; and Eliot—

—pushes back the surge of—it's not even impatience, is it, it's—_anger_, isn't it: in—in that stupid, self-centered way he always—_gets_ angry with her, doesn't he, when he can't even—_pretend_ it's justified, when—

Eliot scrubs at his face. Takes a sip of bourbon—a sip, not a gulp, because—because. He's trying. To not be—the TV catches his attention, for an instant: hockey. The Blackhawks are—good, now, apparently; and giving Edmonton a run for their money: oh how things change, a part of Eliot thinks; and that is—surprising. He's just—surprised, that's all. Because—because that's a part he thought he'd excised, more or less. He's not really mad _at Margo_, is he? He's just—he'd watched a game or two, here and there, last year, that's all. Because—he could, couldn't he? It was—a thing he could do: he's always been able to follow hockey, just like most good Midwestern boys; he's just been—in recovery, he thinks; and sips his drink.

Backspace. Backspace. Backspace.

_No its cool_, Eliot says, to Margo. Careful; slow. _Enjoy your blonde. Talk tomorrow?_; and then—

—then he puts his phone on Do Not Disturb, and tucks it into his pocket before she can reply; and gets up, finally, to take his coat off, because it might be blizzarding outside, but it's about a million degrees in the Whirlaway.

For lack of anything better to do, he watches the game, sort of. Eliot gives about negative twenty-five fucks about sports, but at least it's not—fucking _football_. He'd said that to Ted once, hadn't he; and Ted had laughed and laughed and laughed; and then he'd—started to get. Confused; and Quentin had had to leave the room. So Eliot—what the fuck ever, he can—he can watch a hockey game, can't he? He can watch a hockey game, voluntarily, because he is a 100% actual real-life grown up, who gets to—_make choices_, doesn't he? It's just—that the ones that come most naturally to him, sometimes, are—incredibly fucking shitty. Edmonton scores to bring it to a flat 3-3, two minutes and change left in the third; and Eliot looks down at his glass and tries to decide if he cares, and what it says about him, honestly, that he's in the bar where he gets the local amateur opera-baritone bear to consult on his art projects, drinking bourbon, which he doesn't even—_like_, honestly, not after—

The chair across from him scrapes out; and Eliot looks up at—at Quentin, of course, who is standing there in—in his novelty flannel Harry Potter PJ bottoms and his wool coat: "This seat taken?" he asks, like the _enormous dork_ that he is, and probably always has been. Eliot rolls his eyes, but he nudges the chair out with a toe; Quentin's eyes crinkle up at the corners, as he—slides his coat off, like being—in a bar on a Friday night in PJ bottoms and a Columbia hoodie is a totally normal thing to do, _honestly_; and then drags the chair around, right up next to Eliot's left side. Not sitting down.

"You want anything?" Quentin asks, looking at him. His hands—those hands. Square on the back of the chair, his—big, solid-lovely hands, which always—make Eliot fucking _crazy_—

"Uh—well, for starters, they're cash only," he says; and when Quentin's face falls, Eliot nods and leans up to dig into his pocket. "But if you wanted to get me, like—something _marginally_ less clichéd Indiana-farmboy-descent-into-alcoholism," Eliot says, "I wouldn't say no": and hands Quentin, first, his still-two-thirds-full bourbon; and second, his wallet, because Quentin never _does_ carry anything but plastic.

Quentin nods. His mouth curling, a little: that warm, rueful little twist of something too painful to really totally count as a smile. 

Eliot watches Quentin goes over to put both elbows on the bar, pulling himself up onto his toes, as he leans in to talk to Kieran. Kieran gives him a once-over—hitting somewhere around the midpoint on the subtlety scale, which means that Quentin doesn't notice—like, at all, basically; and then turns back to mix up—and those are fucking—_mai tais_, Eliot realizes, throat tight with fondness; when Quentin finally turns back to carry them back to the table: oh, _Quentin_. 

"I told him you liked the little umbrellas," Quentin explains, setting them down. "He wasn't sure that he had any, but—he found some, luckily": in that breezy, not-at-all casual way Quentin tends to get when he's talking about times he shamelessly casts in front of muggles, just—just because—because Eliot _does_ like the little umbrellas. And—Quentin, who is crouching down behind where his chair used to be to root through the bar's collection of retro-nostalgic board games: "Ooh, Connect 4!" Eliot likes the little umbrellas, and Quentin, and—and he likes the way Quentin isn't looking at him: he likes that, too. He likes—just watching Quentin, brow furrowed, putting together the Connect 4 frame with the seriousness of a scientist engaged in vital work for the war effort; while behind him on the TV a bunch of white guys in suits are saying nothing of importance about hockey. "Don't get too excited," Quentin is saying. "The fruit's still canned": and Eliot—laughs.

"I'm shocked," he says, "_shocked_, that the pineapple in my mai tai would be canned, in—Chicago, in December"; and then—swallows. "I do like the little umbrellas, baby," Eliot says, scratchy; and then—reaches over.

Quentin looks at him. "I know," he says, very quietly. Interlacing their fingers. 

Eliot ducks his head. Eyes closed. Feeling—the familiar weight and shape and clever, calloused-skin texture of Quentin's warm hand.

When he blinks up again, Quentin's watching him. His mouth quirks. "Yellow or red?" he asks; and Eliot straightens up.

"Red," he says, "_obviously_": and the quirk blooms open into Quentin's full, broad, dimple-creased smile: and that's—another thing Eliot likes. Isn't it: like—like drinking mai tais in a Chicago dive with his boyfriend in his pajamas, while they play Connect 4, and everyone else waits for overtime. Eliot hasn't played Connect 4 in—twenty years, probably: "I have, I think," Quentin says, distracted; and twists just enough to slurp at the straw of his mai tai. "We used to play—oh, you know, Jenga and Sorry! and stuff, in college." He blocks Eliot on the diagonal and adds, "Though, I mean—Jenga we turned into a drinking game."

"Didn't you turn D&D into a drinking game?" Eliot asks.

"D&D's basically already a drinking game," Quentin says. "I mean—" He shrugs, a little. "You spend a lot of time drinking in taverns with orcs and stuff—it was just. Commitment to realism, honestly."

"Yeah, realism," Eliot says, "I can tell": and Quentin flicks the end of his straw at him, but he's laughing, a little bit.

He looks tired. Doesn't he.

And Eliot—

"You hung the clock up," he realizes, straightening; just as Quentin—

—is hunching. 

Down into his Columbia hoodie.

"Uh, yeah." Quentin clears his throat. Not—actually looking at him, so Eliot—

—plays, moving towards the right, just—just to give him a little bit of space, to—

"I got it working, actually," Quentin says; and then shifts, a little.

Christ. His shitty day: God, Eliot's a terrible boyfriend. He'd almost forgotten. "Christ, I'm sorry," Eliot sighs. "That text feels like—a million years ago, and also, I am a self-centered dick." 

Quentin huffs, knocking their knees together. Not quite looking at him. 

Eliot reaches over, brushing Quentin's bangs back. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks.

Quentin just turtles down further into; and shakes his head. 

"Okay," Eliot says; and then, hesitant, "Later?"

Quentin nods. Sighing, a little; before he makes a move; then says, "Today's song was 'We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together'": and Eliot—looks back up at him.

"...seriously?" he asks; even though—Quentin is already nodding, looking—down somewhere around Eliot's right elbow, probably; and because—because who the hell would make that up, _honestly_. "Jesus." Eliot shifts, a little; then plays. "You didn't think it was about—I mean, you weren't stressed out about—like." Swallowing. "_Us_," he says, "or—"

And _that_—for that, Quentin looks up. 

Wearing—that very serious, very familiar warm expression: his dark, dark eyes. Wide-open, searching, on Eliot's face: "Sweetheart," Quentin says, finally, "I'm—basically never stressed out about us."

Which—

—is just. One of those things Quentin—_does_, sometimes, and it always. Makes Eliot feel like—like he's getting the Tony for a play he wasn't even—_in_, honestly, so—so he makes another move in Connect 4; and then realizes— "Shit," he says, "it—sorry, _sorry_, it was—your turn, wasn't it?": trying to scrape the chip out with his fingers in the holes because he doesn't—feel quite up to the task, does he, of actually—casting; not with Quentin, just—just resting.

His feet.

On top of Eliot's feet.

Under the table.

Eliot swallows. "...Are you wearing Converse?" he asks; looking up. 

Quentin ducks his head, a little. "I didn't want to have to—argue with my fucking bootlaces again," he mutters; and Eliot sighs.

"Two years and three months with you and I still—how you _don't_ get pneumonia every winter, I will never know," he says; and then, "Eat your pineapple"; slipping his hands under the table to cast to—dry out Quentin's socks, at least; warm them up a little; as Quentin gives him a small, tired smile across the table.

"Do you know you do that?" Quentin asks. Picking up pineapple ring between two fingers.

Eliot frowns. "Do I know I do what?"

"Two years, three months," Quentin says; and Eliot—

—goes very, very still.

Quentin shrugs, nibbling at his pineapple. "Whenever anyone asks you when we got together, you tell them—after I got back from Brakebills South, sometime," he says. "That end-of-term Illusionists' party—which we didn't even go to, by the way—or, like, New Year's—which—uh—or, or somewhere in spring semester, or something, but—whenever anyone asks you _how long we've been dating_, that's—pretty clearly not the date you use."

Which.

He's not—_wrong_, exactly, but. It still makes Eliot feel—prickly. Weird. 

"I mean—we don't exactly—have a regular anniversary, do we, though?" Eliot says, finally; and squashes—all the rest of it. Down.

Quentin tilts his head. "Well, not yet," he says: which is— "but—you're pretty clearly using—like, you're totally consistent about it," Quentin says, like he thinks Eliot didn't _notice_, or something. "I mean—" Quentin shifts, a little. "You—I think you use—like, it's definitely before the Trials," he says: a little uncertainly, looking up: God, he can be—_infuriating_, sometimes. Can't he. "But I don't actually know—what you count from," Quentin says; and Eliot—

"—Wait." Eliot swallows. "How long do _you_ think we've been dating?" he asks; because—if they're going to actually. _Talk_ about this—

"Two years and three months sounds about right," Quentin says, very promptly; and Eliot—lets out a breath he hadn't totally realized he was holding. "Week 8," Quentin adds, "so I think it was around—oh, fuck it, who am I kidding, it was September 19th."

Pink-cheeked; smiling, a little. Sheepish: "Our first date, I mean," Quentin adds, about—twelve thousand percent unnecessarily, except—

"I didn't even fucking take you on a date," Eliot mutters; and then. Rubs at his forehead.

"Uh." Quentin laughs, a little. "You—_did_, actually, so—"

"Not—an actual _date_, though, did I?" Eliot says. Feeling—hot, and embarrassed, and—and achy all over, and—and _sad_: "Not—a _real_ date, not—"

Quentin tilts his head. "Where I come from," he says, "if you ask someone out for coffee and then dry-hump them nine-tenths of the way to orgasm afterwards, that's one hundred percent a date, Eliot": and Eliot swallows, hard.

He'd—forgotten about that. 

(Almost.)

"We got coffee," Eliot says, "on—Saturday, Week 8"; and Quentin huffs.

"Should I be, like—embarrassed?" he asks. Squinting, a little: "that, like—apparently you don't even—_remember_ asking me out, or—"

"No," Eliot says, "no, I—Q, I—I bought you coffee every Saturday," he says, "your first semester." Throat sore; and Quentin.

Blinks.

"Oh," he says, after a second. "I mean—I know, but it wasn't like—"

And then he.

Stops.

"Oh," he says, again. Quiet.

Eliot rubs at his forehead. "Yeah, I mean—to be fair, at first it was definitely more like—maybe you'd let me go down on you and then—not make a big deal out of it, when I pretended to forget your name," he says, and then—laughs, a little. Aching. "But—I just—I don't ever know—_when_ to count it from," he says. "Except—" Swallowing. "Except—when you said. That you wanted me to kiss you."

Quentin shifts, a little. 

"Which was September 8th," Eliot says; and then laughs, a little. Shaking his head. "If we are counting."

Quentin tilts his head, a little; and then—scoots his chair—closer. His sleeve catching on the edge of the table. So he and Eliot are sitting—knee to knee. Thigh to thigh.

"I didn't mean to push that button," Quentin asks, quiet, "I didn't—I didn't get that it _was_ that button"; and Eliot—shakes his head.

"It's not," he says; and then—sighs. Wrapping an arm around him. "Or—it is and it isn't, you know?" Eliot kisses Quentin's temple. His mouth, when he tips it up, feeling—queasy; sore; almost unbearably grateful. "I do—know, now," Eliot says, a little thickly. "That you—like me, I mean."

"It's true." Quentin presses a kiss in against his jaw. "I do": and Eliot—wonders, a little, if he'll ever really—believe it, totally. With all of him.

"But _I_ don't really like me, a lot of the time," Eliot admits, throat tight even though—even though it's not like that's exactly a secret, either; and Quentin—nestles in against him, resting his cheek on Eliot's shoulder. 

"I know," Quentin says, quiet. "I don't like me a lot of the time, either."

"Yeah, but you're—wonderful," Eliot says; and Quentin laughs, a little.

"How's that working out for you when I say it?" he asks, squinting up; blurry, this close.

"Better than when you don't," Eliot says; and Quentin's face softens.

"Yeah," he says, quiet. "I—get that"; and Eliot.

Nods.

Throat sore, when he bends his face down to kiss him: once, quick. Quentin's mouth scratchy and familiar against his mouth.

"Did you know about Rachel's mom?" Eliot asks, rough; and Quentin—shifts, a little. "I mean, it's okay," Eliot says, "I know—you've been—spending a lot of time with her, it's not like—"

"I told Rachel to fucking tell you, as soon as I found out," Quentin says, low and—and _angry_, a little; and then—

—he sighs.

"I get why she didn't," he says: voice tired. Eliot squeezes him. "But—Jesus, El," Quentin says. "It's not like I don't get _your_ half, too, because—because that was just. An _incredibly_ shitty fucking thing to do to you": and Eliot.

Shakes his head.

"It was shitty of her to tell—_you_, maybe": he swallows. "To—expect you to—"

"She didn't expect me to do anything," Quentin says, quiet. "It just kind of. Came up, you know? Because—because of my dad, and everything": Eliot sighs. 

Kissing his temple.

"Mostly I'm just mad at myself," Eliot whispers. "For—for this whole fucking week."

Quentin sighs. "You could give yourself, like, twenty-seven cents worth of credit, you know," he says. Sliding an arm around Eliot's waist. "You did a pretty damn good job, I think," Quentin says, low, "with having—your estranged mother dumped on your doorstep, the day before Christmas—"

"No, I mean—" Eliot swallows. "I think—after tonight": he laughs, a little. Scratchy, and sore. "I really can be—an unredeemable bastard, you know?"; and Quentin sighs again.

"No," Quentin says. Quiet. "I think—yeah. You can be kind of a dick sometimes, but—not _unredeemable_, El."

Eliot swallows. "Everything—everything I fucking said..." He scrubs at his face. "Could've been from—it was—fucking _textbook_," he says: "Indiana's finest"; and then.

Laughs.

"No—_El_." Quentin squeezes Eliot's hand, hard. "You're not that either. Not unless—you want to drop the irony"; and Eliot.

Swallows, around the lump in his throat.

"I don't want to—to be that person, Q," he says, very thickly; and "Yeah," Quentin says. "I know."

Squeezing him close.

"You're not, though," Quentin says, quiet. "You know that, right?"

"Q," Eliot says, "what I said to her": thick; and Quentin reaches up. Touching his cheek.

"You had a fight," Quentin says; and Eliot—looks at him: Quentin's mouth quirking, a little. "_We_ fight," Quentin reminds him. "_You and Margo_ fight—Jesus, whenever you try to party-plan together the pair of you are like chimpanzees arguing over territory": and Eliot. Is going to assume that that's—bad, probably. "You're allowed to fight with your mom, El," Quentin says. "You're allowed—to get _mad_ at her—Jesus, _I'm_ mad at her, for half—the things I know that happened—"

"I know," Eliot says. Achy. "I know, Q, I—I do know that."

"So you had a fight," Quentin says, "it happens": very quietly; and all at once Eliot remembers—

—Quentin, coming into his room. Last May, after—after Memorial Day, which they'd spent—grilling in subdued, grey-faced silence outside the Cottage: everyone from Margo to Julia to Natalie Chan, who was Frankie's latest special friend (naturalist; special interest in psychedelics and Hoberman's natural inheritor as campus enabler; also previously a professional contortionist) all picking up and magnifying Quentin's shitty mood. It had been—a really, really fucking terrible day. And somewhere around when it'd started to rain—that tepid, indecisive sprinkling that was the worst they got, usually, at Brakebills—and Eliot had used it as an excuse to wind down the grill and retreat back to his room, feeling—tense, furious, devastated, ashamed—

—and then. 

Then Quentin had come, maybe half an hour later, leaning his cheek against Eliot's doorframe, hair dripping as—_I said—some shit_: like it was—tearing out of him, ripping stitches; _that I—_really_ fucking regret, El_; and then, _I'm so fucking sorry_: unsteady, as he'd crawled over to stretch out on top of Eliot on Eliot's bed, shivering a little: _Jesus, El, I—I'm just. I'm not mad at _you_, you've been—my fucking _rock_, I'm just. A fuckup, and I—I love you, and I'm just. So, so fucking sorry, Eliot_. And it hadn't—fixed it, had it? It hadn't made it okay; and it hadn't made Eliot not be—annoyed, or frustrated, or hurt or tired or—or _sad_; but when Eliot'd put a hand on Quentin's damp back with Quentin clinging to him like Eliot was the last solid place on earth, what Eliot had been feeling was _grateful_. That sort of—dizzying fucking gratitude, that they would weather it, that they both wanted to: clutching to Quentin's damp t-shirt thinking _mine close mine safe mine grateful mine_, Eliot's chest unlocking door after door after door, for Quentin to fit back inside. So—so he'd meant it. Hadn't he. When he'd pressed his mouth to Quentin's damp forehead and whispered, _It's okay, baby. I know_. 

In the Whirlaway, seven months later, Eliot rubs at his face. "Jesus, I need to apologize for about—two million separate things, I think." He sighs, and Quentin rubs the toes of his sneakers against Eliot's ankles. "This _fucking_ day," Eliot says, thick; winding their fingers together. Squeezing tight. "It had to get you too, hm?" he asks, low; and Quentin laughs, a little scratchy. Shakes his head, ducking down to slurp at his dregs of canned juice and rum, not meeting Eliot's eyes: okay, Eliot thinks. Rubbing his thumb over the back of Quentin's hand. Okay. Just—

Not yet.

Eliot looks up at the TV: more talking heads, blah. The game's probably—long over. 

"Want another?" Quentin asks. Nodding at Eliot's mostly-empty drink; and Eliot touches the heavy bone of Quentin's right wrist.

"There's what I want and what I want," he says; and Quentin nods. Winding their fingers up together. "Do you want to stay?" Quiet; and Quentin sighs. Rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Honestly, I mostly want to be somewhere quiet," he says. "With you." 

It comes out a little rough; so Eliot nods. Takes a long last sip of his mai tai; and then puts his shoulders back. "Okay." He takes a breath. "Um, is this a like—we should go be quiet in bed together right away kind of a thing, or can I—I mean, was she—still awake, or—what time is it, even?" He squints back up at the TV, which is no help at all.

"Uh—not actually late, I don't think? You've just been up for forever," Quentin says, shifting, a little, so he can pull out his phone. "Ten, barely. And—yeah, she was still up when I left. If you want to talk to her?"

Eliot definitely—does not want to talk to her. "What," he asks, light, "as opposed to drinking these fabulous mai tais on an empty stomach and losing to you at Connect 4?"

"We actually left you mac and cheese in the oven," Quentin says; "_God_": Eliot laughs, brokenly; putting his face in his hands; and Quentin shifts his chair that last little bit closer, to squeeze him tight-tight-tight around the middle.

Eliot breathes. Breathes. Breathes. 

"Not going to tell me it's all going to be okay?" he asks, finally. Thick; as he wipes at his face: Jesus, the place is five deep in hipsters, practically: all of them looking to poach their table; he's probably never going to be able to come back, and it's the closest bar. Quentin squeezes, a little.

"It's all gonna be okay," Quentin says, quiet; and then adds, "for some values of 'all,' and some values of 'okay'."

Eliot laughs, a little; and takes a breath. Nodding. 

Nodding.

He winds up having to half-drag Quentin home, honestly: how he even made it across Fullerton in those shoes with this much ice— "It's all part of my cunning plan," Quentin tells him, "to get you to carry me": turning to loop his arms around Eliot's neck in the stairwell, from two steps up. Eliot—still feels pretty fucking shitty, honestly, but having Quentin duck down to kiss him helps—a lot. It'd help—more, Eliot knows, if they just—went to bed, slept it off, let Eliot—actually not have to look at it again until morning, once the edges have had a chance to scab over, but—

The thing about bravery, Eliot knows, is that it doesn't get easier. Quentin's about a thousand percent better at looking shit in the face than he is, and there were still—a lot of moments, last fall, in the winter, when Q—had had to leave the room. And Eliot—does feel brave, is the thing; or something a little bit like it: with Quentin holding his hand, pressing his face down in between Eliot's shoulderblades, while Eliot is unlocking the door. He thinks—maybe he could face her. Look her in the eye, and say—

—except that the lights are off, aren't they. All of them except for the single golden light over the sink in the kitchen, its amberish glow leaking into the hallway, just enough for Eliot to not see much of anything except the floor. 

He stops in the doorway for so long that Quentin finally just sort of nudges his way past him; lets out a long, slow breath. And then—then Quentin slides his coat off, and sits on the footstool to untie his wet shoelaces; and then—hesitating, just for a second—he turns to Eliot's boots. Unties them, too. Helps Eliot out of them, one foot at a time; and his sweaty socks; and then—standing up—Eliot's scarf, and his coat, and his vest, and his tie, and his belt, and the cigarettes from his pocket and his wallet and his phone—which: the phone, Quentin slips into his own PJs pocket—before he starts unbuttoning Eliot's shirt. Eliot puts his hand over Quentin's, just for a second; and then—kisses him: that sort of—slow, soft, sharing-air connection of lip to lip that always just feels—like it fits. Just perfectly. Custom-made. 

"PJs," Quentin says, quiet. "Dinner": and Eliot takes a slow, steadying breath, and nods.

Lets Quentin—peel him down to his skin; and then put him back together.

The oven is off, but the mac and cheese is still hot. The top crunchy and salty, just the way Eliot likes. He still only eats—about four bites of it, though; and then some slightly-stale pretzels that Quentin found in the cupboard, because they just seem—a lot easier. To handle: while Quentin puts the rest of his mac and cheese into a plastic container, and sticks it in the fridge; and then. Washes his bowl for him.

"You don't have to do that," Eliot whispers, just against Quentin's ear: pressing his whole body up against his back, wrapping an arm around his middle.

"Yeah, but I _can_ do it." Quentin leans back against him. Turns, a little, for a kiss: "I can't fix—the rest of it," Quentin says, very quietly, "but if I wash your bowl, then at least—at least I'm doing something to _help_ you": and Eliot presses his face down against Quentin's shoulder.

Blinking back tears. For—

—for no reason whatsoever.

"These PJs are probably—too hot to actually sleep in," Eliot admits; and Quentin says, "I know," very low. Eliot—laughs, a little: all right. All right: point to Coldwater, game, set, and match.

"You gonna get undressed with me?" Quentin whispers, tipping his head back; and Eliot muffles a laugh, ragged, against the heavy fabric of his Columbia hoodie.

"You sure you don't want to keep this on?" Eliot asks. Thick; "Ooh," Quentin murmurs. "Kinky."

Big talk, but—they both know it. Don't they. As soon as the bowl's in the dish drainer, Quentin just takes Eliot's hand and pulls him to the bathroom. He leaves the kitchen light on: "So we don't wake her up tripping over shit," he murmurs; and Eliot nods. In the quiet they could almost be—alone, couldn't they: except for the heap of covers on the pullout, tugged up so high that Eliot can't even see her hair. In the bathroom, Quentin brushes his teeth. Washes his face. Eliot takes off the last fucked-up smears of his eyeliner and cleans up while Quentin pisses, which—Margo is always super fucking weird about that, because she, like, doesn't get that men end up peeing next to each other, like, all the time, or that Eliot has seen Quentin in about seventy thousand more compromising positions, but—whatever. In bed in just skin, with Quentin just in his, Eliot feels—not normal, but—better. Bad, still, honestly. But better.

"I'm so sorry I keep making you deal with this," Eliot whispers; and Quentin hums. Shaking his head, as he burrows in closer: warm all over.

"God knows you've dealt with enough of my family bullshit," Quentin says; and then. Gives this sort of—hurt, half-laughing sort of sound; and then sighs; so Eliot has to tip his chin up. Kiss him.

"Families are bullshit," he agrees; and then shifts, a little. "Clock?" he guesses, gentle. "Or—not yet?"; and Quentin ducks his head.

"Letters," he corrects, after a second, voice scratchy; and then—he pulls away. Rolling over onto his back. Face turned up towards the ceiling. The line of his profile a shadowy blur, in the dark.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/quentin_letter)

[Families are bullshit.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/quentin_letter)

Eliot folds his hand over Quentin's chest. Scrapes his fingertips through his fuzz, because—because they both like that: all the tension running out of Quentin's warm body, as Eliot cups his body around Quentin's in their bed.

Eliot waits. Petting, petting. Petting—

"I'm not a Coldwater," Quentin says, finally, "we got—all the pictures backwards."

His voice is—very rough; and Eliot—flattens his palm out, as Quentin folds his hand over Eliot's hand. The slow, sea-steady throb of his heart. 

Eliot kisses the hinge of his shoulder; and waits.

"It's just—Beth had an affair," Quentin says, a little fast; and then—he laughs. Bleak; as Eliot knots up their fingers. "With—it was with Walter, _obviously_," Quentin says: like a punishment, "because—Matthew was in France for two years straight, during the war, there was—no _way_ he could've—gotten back to knock her up, or—and there was. This _letter_, this fucking—_horrible_ letter": serrated. Eliot squeezes, Quentin's knuckles sliding in between his. "Of Matthew just—pretending to be—so fucking _happy_": Quentin's voice cracks. "And in—practically the same breath, reminding her—how long it'd been, since he'd—since he'd seen them, Christ, I mean—he must've known—even then. That—that he went to war, and she fucking—screwed his best friend": and Quentin folds his elbow up over his face.

Breathing in, deep.

While his heart thuds, slow and steady, under Eliot's hand.

"I'm sorry, Q," Eliot says, quiet. "I know—how much it meant to you, that Matthew was—like you." He shifts, a little. "I mean—a magician"; and tucked up against him, Quentin takes a slow, shaky breath.

"It's not that," Quentin says. Thick. "It's just—"

Quiet, again. His body tense. Trembling, a little. Under Eliot's hand.

"It was bad enough when—when I only thought I got it on _one_ side," Quentin says, finally; and then.

Laughs.

And Eliot presses his mouth down against Quentin's warm shoulder. Careful, as he lets out his breath.

There's—so much Eliot could say. So _fucking_ much: about how it's—_better_, isn't it? Because it means biology _isn't_ destiny; or how if _Eliot_'s past didn't fix his future on a single dark, unhappy path then _Quentin's_ isn't fixed, either, and _both_ of them get to pick; or Eliot could even start back in on his birthday: yet another endless iteration of the about fifteen thousand ways they'd talked past each other about sex and distance and sex with other people and distance from each other all last spring and summer, with Eliot wanting to make it easy for him, just on the cusp of leaving; or in Chicago, a thousand miles away. Eliot, lying curled up around Quentin in the dark, wants—so _fucking_ badly—just to _fix_ it for him: to do—anything, fucking—_anything_, to make it—_hurt_ less—

"You know I love you, right?" Eliot says, quiet, instead; and Quentin nods. Felt, not seen; as Eliot presses a kiss to Quentin's shoulder. "You want to talk it out with me, or just commiserate?" he asks: _throat_; and Quentin—

—sighs.

All the tension seeping out of his spine.

"Honestly, I think I'm too tired for you to do more than just commiserate," Quentin admits; and then—sighs, again. Rolling up onto his side, to face Eliot: a close, warm pale blur, in the faint trickling-in streetlights.

Eliot touches his cheek. "Okay, baby," he says, quiet; and then—brushes a thumb over Quentin's soft, parting mouth. "Families are bullshit?" Eliot suggests, quiet; and Quentin huffs. Snuggling close.

"_Such_ bullshit," he agrees. "_Total_ bullshit."

"The bullshittiest," Eliot says; and Quentin ducks down, curling closer-closer-closer, rubbing his face against Eliot's collarbone.

"And you know from bullshit," he says, a little muffled; and Eliot wraps his arms around Quentin's back, tight-tight-tight.

"It's true," Eliot says. "I do"; and then tucks his face down against Quentin's in the dark; and closes his eyes.


	8. fragile.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/storywide)

[You okay?](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/storywide)

### 8\. fragile.

#### Saturday, December 30, 2017

On Saturday, Eliot's alarm goes off at five o'clock in the morning.

He turns it off, and slides his arm back under the covers. Blinking, in the dark, at Quentin; as Quentin blinks, in the dark, at him.

Eliot touches his sternum. "You okay?" he asks. Quiet; and Quentin touches his cheek.

"Are you?" he asks; and Eliot can feel his mouth twist.

"Kiss me and ask me again," Eliot says; and so Quentin—

—does.

"Really," Quentin whispers: his lashes a long fuzz of shadow in shadow, before he lifts up those dark, dark eyes.

Eliot swallows. "You see us in them," he says, quiet; and Quentin huffs.

"Do you _not_?"

Eliot hesitates, for a second. "No," he says, finally. "I don't. Not—not there, at any rate"; and Quentin sighs. "But—just because I don't, never would've," Eliot says. Throat sore. "It's not like I don't understand. Why you do"; as Quentin.

Nods, a little, mouth curving down; and then leans back in, to press their foreheads together.

"Are you sure you want to go in?" Quentin asks, very low; and Eliot sighs. Pulling away.

"I mean—'want' is maybe a kind of strong way of putting it," he says, petting Quentin's hair back. "But—if you're asking if I'll regret it in the morning—I mean." He swallows. "Not this time?"

Quentin huffs. Nods.

"Not that—not that I _do_ regret it, exactly," Eliot says; and then, throat sore, touches Quentin's ear, when Quentin twists to rub his forehead on the pillow. "I just—I hate that you do, you know?"

Quentin takes a breath, slow; and then sighs.

"I don't," he says; and then sighs again. "I still don't, honestly. I just—"

He's quiet, for a breath.

"I hate what—what I keep feeling like it says about me," he says, finally; and Eliot nods. Kissing him, gentle. 

"It's never said—any of that, for me," Eliot says. "You know that, right? It—it doesn't. It never has"; as Quentin nods.

"I know. I do. I just—" He sighs; and rubs his face against Eliot's; and then stretches, under the covers. "Christ, how did we get _on_ this again?"

"Regrets," Eliot reminds him: a short sharp pang; and then, "Like mine, over how I need to get up and go to work. On a Saturday. Which—I anticipate that I will loathe every second of it, but I think—I kind of think I need to do it, you know?"

Quentin shifts, a little.

"Like," Eliot explains. Chest tight. "Like, for me."

Opposite him, Quentin's mouth pulls down; but he nods; and then curls a hand up, to squeeze the back of Eliot's neck again.

Eliot slides closer, to kiss him. 

"Try to get some more sleep, okay?"; as Quentin—_looks_ at him, his mouth still turned down, but—

"Yeah," Quentin says. "I'll try."

Eliot showers. Shirt. Trousers. Socks. Vest. Hair, thoroughly dried; two swipes of eyeliner, in that same plummy-dark almost-black he always wants to put Rachel in: a hot, sore knot in his chest. He waffles, possibly a little longer than he ought, over choosing a tie: he doesn't—intend to, really; knows it's using up whatever he bought himself, with that extra half-hour early on his alarm clock; but it means that he's still standing next to his dresser when his attention is caught by a soft, half-trilling _whirr_: and down on the patch of hallway wall opposite the end of his closet, all the shutters of the clock swing gently open: six a.m.; as a tinkly little piano starts to play.

Eliot hesitates, then goes over, with his tie (raspberry; herringbone) still draped over his hand.

As the piano trots merrily through a deeply surreal rendition of "Don't Let Me Down" (Ragtime Remix), Eliot sees the figures in the bottom window, and the nearly-full moon, and the woman in the minidress: now facing front so square to the window that she might as well be watching him; her bright-eyed raven—an all-black 'V', today—crouched on her shoulder. He does notice, as the clouds gather in the top window, as the snow begins to fall. But what he is actually _looking_ at is in between, in the second window, which he's never actually _seen into_ before: its shutters at last folded open, spread wide, to show a kitchen: a kitchen, he notes, with a pang, that isn't—_real_, precisely; but is, still, painfully, heartbreakingly familiar. Those luminous green leaves, swaying outside broad bright windows. A familiar deep farmhouse sink. The fire is dancing in an open hearth, not a woodstove, but the table could be an accurate scale model: its squared legs, and heavy dinged wood surface: a working table, which is at the moment, Eliot notes, fucking _covered_ in bowls. A little snowy white mountain: that's flour, he thinks. Butter, in the next, cut into little yellow cubes. Spices in one, sugar in another, lemon juice in a third and zest in a fourth, beside an open jar of honey and a little ramekin of salt; with a big glass bowl (hers was metal) full of green apples (theirs were blotchy) beside a butcher-block cutting board (which is—just right): one single half-cut apple resting, in the very middle, with its peel sliced off in one long, narrow, spiraling strip. Beside the cutting board, there is a pair of scissors, just-resting atop a bunch of—of rosemary, Eliot notes. Blinking. Blinking: a sharp, sore well of memory rising up in him. She'd kept a rosemary plant in the kitchen window, and she had always put it—just a little bit of it—in her apple pies. _Secret ingredient_, she had said, _Rosemary for remembrance—that's like, remembering things_, bending to wipe a smudge of flour off his face; and he had asked, _Why's it for remembering, Mama?_; and she had tilted her head, her eyes crinkling up, and then said, _I don't know—I forget!_; and both of them had laughed. She had let him sit on the table, when he was really little, or under it or at it, later on: _Are you trying to use herbalism so I don't forget my lines?_ he'd asked her, side-eyeing her cutting board, as she'd made up the pie; and she'd said, _If it works, will you thank me in your Oscar speech?_; and he'd hunched over, mumbled, _Mom, _stop_ it_; but when she'd brandished the rosemary at him, he'd paused, and then grabbed his highlighter off his script for _Les Mis_, flailing it out at her cap-off as she'd shrieked and cackled, dueled with him across the table as he'd howled, _Get back, witch!_ All of it springing up in him—_through_ him—around him, halfway to drowning, like a vast, unboundable sea: Eliot a little, bobbing cork, adrift in this fucking _ocean_ of history: a woman he hasn't spoken to in a half a decade, with her hand gentle on his shoulder, his cheek; on his head or his face; her soft voice walking him through it as she showed him how to prepare a butter crust or roast a chicken; as she helped him make his first buttonhole, or tailor a $10 pair of jeans. 

The song stops; and the clock folds itself shut; and Eliot.

Takes a breath.

The clock doesn't tick, does it. But his heart keeps time: _thud, thud, thud_, in his chest.

Scissors, he is thinking. Right. Of course.

Because—all his life. For as long as he can remember, for _years_: that was the version of her he had known, wasn't it? This little, quiet woman, who never fought back, and never once raised her voice: bent over something with kitchen shears, or sewing scissors, or a deadly-sharp paring knife: taking apart whatever material that fell to her hands, and making—something else. Always. Old worn-out sweaters to balls of yarn to new scarves or mittens. Tattered curtains, which had become new placemats. Their kitchen had reeked of Rit for a week and a half when they were dyeing old painter's drop-cloths to have something heavy enough to make Javert's uniform coat hang right; a smell that had _haunted_ him, the first few times he'd cast at Brakebills, before he'd figured out where he'd known it from. And then—then there had been. All those apples: all those sour terrible home-grown apples that she'd made into something sweet, and smooth, and silky: their flavor turned bursting-bright and exuberant in her pies. And Eliot. Eliot had liked art, for as long as he could remember; so as long as he could remember Rachel had kept all the scraps of his crayons in the kitchen in jars, and melted them down when they had enough to make new ones: a rainbow of made-up custom colors that she'd shown him how to mix, Slug Yellow and Turnip-Peel and Mr. Jeffers' Face At The Church Picnic When The Cat Peed On His Shoes. Eliot had liked to draw, so she'd sliced up church programs and used shipping boxes and the paper bags that their groceries came in; she'd kept all their one-sided junk mail and cut all their received envelopes up their edges: and then she'd given them all to Eliot, to draw on their blank insides. She was just—like that, wasn't she? She was always—_destroying_ things, wasn't she; and as a child Eliot had been—so afraid, always, of fucking—_everything_ like that: of the garbage disposal, of the thresher, of the rototiller they'd used on the kitchen garden and of the paper shredder that they had in the principal's office at school: some kind of—bizarre, imperfect transmutation from the rational fear of the howling hurricane that had burst in and out of their lives twice a day for seventeen and a half years into a totally irrational fear of ordinary, everyday useful objects: and now, here he is, twenty-six, and realizing for the first time that actually, in reality, the single most destructive force in Whiteland, Indiana was probably his _mother_, but no one had ever fucking _noticed_, because she just went around quietly tearing apart the universe, making it _better_, while no one cared enough to pay attention to her at all. And then—

—then Eliot remembers—

—the summer when he was seven. He'd been seven. He remembers that. He'd been seven, and someone had taped a whole bunch of fliers all over the front door of the farmhouse. He doesn't remember why. He doesn't remember what he'd done. But he _does_ remember watching Rachel, reading through one after she'd pulled it down and brought it into their kitchen: sliding the power bill down over each line as she'd slogged her way through it, which he only really remembered because he was out of drawing paper and he'd wanted the envelope—or the flier, if it didn't have a back side. He remembers—how pale she'd looked. Her burning eyes. And he remembers watching her hit a line that had made hot red marks bloom up in her face without anyone hitting her at all; how then she had crumpled up the flier, and gone to throw it out—and how then, she had hesitated. She had flattened it out. _Can I draw on it, Mama?_ Eliot had asked, from under the table; and she had said, _No_. She had looked him in the face, cheeks red eyes burning, and she had said, _No, we're going to do something else_. And then she had gone into the window-seat and she had got the scissors: her scissors, which were too big and sharp for him to use by himself; not his, which were horrible cheap plastic safety scissors that never worked anyway if he tried to use his left hand; and then she had sat under the table with him where it was cooler all afternoon, all the way until she had to start dinner or everything would get really scary and loud; and that was how, in July, when Eliot was seven, he had come to spend an idyllic summer afternoon making enough paper snowflake chains to decorate the entire fucking _neighborhood_ for Christmas, out of twenty-five cheap Kinko's photocopies of the 18th chapter of Leviticus. Scissors. Scissors, of course: of _course_ they're scissors, not 'X'es: his eyes prickling, like the back of his tongue, and the insides of his nose; scissors, all over the suffocating cape of the woman in the clock's bottom window, half-hiding—

—all those the little glints of candle-flames, in between.

Eliot presses his hands to his face. Breathing in. Breathing out. _There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray_: o irony of ironies. He had actually played Ophelia once, just after undergrad, because it had been an acting job that had paid. It'd been a terrible production, the kind that had thought it was edgy because the casting was genderblind and everyone was poly and liked to talk about which drugs they did on which opening nights; and Eliot had let the director fuck him, after, mostly because he understood it was sort of a tradition for the part. Rosemary for remembrance, huh? There was no way that Rachel had known that was from _Hamlet_. She probably didn't even know what _Hamlet_ was. Except—did she? _Had_ she? _Could_ she have known, that she was quoting, when she explained to her eight-year-old why her pies were better than all the other moms', when _both_ of them could barely read? Eliot doesn't know. He's never asked. He knows that she'd had just as much trouble as him in school—more, probably, given that he's fairly certain hers is worse to begin with and _she_ sure as hell never half-stumbled into any fucking—semi-magical assistive-learning aids; he knows that she grew up knowing how to bake, and at some point had learned how to sew; but he had never had the _first fucking idea_ that she was from Chicago. It had never even _occurred_ to him. Eliot hadn't even fucking known that her _mom_ was still alive. And now he can't—he can't make fucking _any_ of it make sense, can he? He feels like he's barely even fucking _met_ her, even though he's _literally_ known her for the entirety of his life: this person who showed him how to sew, and taught him color theory with melted scraps of crayons; who'd dragged Mrs. Langley about her lime-pickle Jell-O mold so gently that Mrs. Langley hadn't even noticed, and neither had Eliot; who'd made paper snowflakes with Eliot out of abusive Bible verses before he could've even had a _prayer_ of sounding out ay-bomb-in-AY-shun and then taken him to church the next Sunday; who'd caught him with Taylor, once, when they were seventeen, the week after SATs: and then who in the shadowy hall outside the kitchen a half an hour later had squeezed Eliot's arms so tight she'd left bruises, whispering fierce-fast-hot halfway to hyperventilating: _You can't do that, not here, you can't, Eliot—please, you can't, you_ can't: her eyes huge, and black, and _terrified_; and that in that precise moment, Eliot had never hated anyone more in his life. And he knows that she had always peeled her apples like that, _always_. As far back as Eliot can remember: knowing, somehow, that it must reach still further back: Rachel's life, dotted with apple, after apple, after apple, each peeled in a single long, smooth spiral, before she chopped it up for a pie. And—and there's no reason for it, is there? They both had always known that. It wasn't better, or easier, or tastier, or in some other way _more correct_. But she'd done it anyway, because—

—_because it's beautiful_, she explained, smiling at Eliot: a pulled-thin narrow thing, cracked and painful; barely a smile at all. _Beautiful_, Rachel had said, _and useless—just like me!_; and then shoulders hunched she had ducked her head over her cutting board, in her husband's kitchen: so that her long, straight dark hair had hidden her face.

Eliot takes a breath.

He hadn't given her his stuffed brachiosaurus, that time. Had he. By then, six or seven, sitting at the end of the farmhouse table still trembling as he watched his mother prep apples in silence: by then, he had already been old enough to know that it wouldn't help. It had felt—even then—as though this were a place where they were both simply—lost, and would always be lost. As though—the gulf, that just—just fucking _pumped_, _endlessly_, out of the void-generator they lived with, would just—seal them away from everything, in the end, wouldn't it; but it would start by sealing them away from each other. Even then. Even then. Even then, at six or seven, Eliot had watched his mother bent over her cutting board, hands shaking as she peeled the apples, and he had known, with a certainty that stretched to the core of himself, that this was something they would both have to weather alone.

In the hallway. Before the clock. All its windows shut: stilled, and silent; six oh five. Eliot wipes his cheeks off, and takes a breath, and then he ducks back into the bathroom so that he can see his reflection, while he puts on his tie.

He goes into the kitchen. Starts his toast. His coffee. He gets down the peanut butter and he gets out a knife, and then—it wells up in him with a sort of hot, annoyed impatience: that it's been twenty years, and this is still a fucking _weight_ on him, isn't it? Some—some dumb fucking thing his internal fucking _ocean_ of fodder for psychologists (child and otherwise) had once washed up, that Eliot knows isn't true, and that he's going to have to talk about with Genevive anyway, which is going to fucking suck—so, fuck it, right? Just—fuck it, _just fuck you, kid_, Eliot says—not very kindly—to the six- or seven-year-old Eliot still living inside him, watching Rachel weather it alone; because no, he never could fix it; and no, he could never save her; but this is always, _always_ going to be what they have to live with, isn't it? And Eliot made it, he survived, he got out, he got free; and now he's a grown fucking man who can make his own choices; and he just doesn't fucking want to live with it _like that_. So he takes a gulp of too-hot coffee, and then he swaps the pod out for a new one, and sticks his travel mug under it instead. 

He can't stay for breakfast. He can't stay for breakfast, and he doesn't have any placemats, or a tablecloth; he doesn't even have any fucking real napkins. But he _has_ got the silk scarf that Julia had given him last May, after graduation, a deep plum purple, embroidered all over with tiny golden honeybees: _Technically_, she had said, _for architecture, I think it should be bluer. But_. But Eliot hadn't cared: he looks like shit in violet. He goes into his closet to get it; and then he lays it out: at an angle, across the middle of the table, like a runner: it doesn't work great, honestly, since his table's round, but—but it's pretty, at least. Isn't it? It is, he thinks: it is. Then he goes back into his closet, and rifles through his top drawer again: no napkins, fine, but he has got pocket squares: a deep inky-blue, silky-soft: that'd be for Quentin, generally speaking, except that Eliot doesn't really have anything else that would look right with it; so instead he zeroes in on the florals. He narrows it down, with some effort, to three: one a sort of mauve-and-cream meditation on the _idea_ of a flower; the next a Liberty of London warm-multi print on a black background; and, finally, a slightly alien-looking interpretation of tessellating thistles in the general vein of William Morris, with a lot of muted brown mixed in under all its teals and oranges. He finally decides that the first two look best with the scarf, and with each other; but the third looks great with his tie, so he tucks it into his pocket. 

When he turns to get the silverware, Quentin is leaning at the end of the wall. Watching him.

Eliot straightens.

Quentin's face. Is just—it's such a nice face, Eliot thinks: a little tug, under his ribs. It's a nice face, and it's Quentin's; and when Quentin's eyes crinkle up and his dimples show it's even nicer; and when Quentin comes the rest of the way into the kitchen and starts digging through the recycling, Eliot wonders—what a normal person would do: someone who didn't know either of them. But Eliot does know him, in a sense; he knows him well enough that—that he thinks, if Quentin did that, and he _didn't_ know why, he could ask, couldn't he? And Quentin would tell him. And in this particular case, in this particular instance: this is a place where Eliot knows—the _both_ of them: and so Eliot does know what Quentin is doing, even before Quentin surfaces: clutching a handful of junk mail. So Eliot finishes setting the table, and Quentin folds their trash into peonies: half by hand, half by magic; a trick that Eliot had taught him after he'd found Quentin having a panic attack in the library, Week Three: when Quentin had clearly needed something to take his mind off of—everything; and Eliot and Margo had needed help decorating the Cottage for a party. It's a trivial illusion, to make them go from folded paper to the real thing; but this time, Quentin doesn't. Quentin just folds a half-dozen while Eliot is putting out the silverware, and then while Eliot is finishing his toast and his first cup of coffee, and then while Eliot is screwing the lid on his travel mug; and finally Quentin sticks a leftover takeout chopstick in the base of each flower and sets them in in a drinking glass in the center of the table; and then—as Eliot watches, throat tight with longing—Quentin bends down; turns them; bends down; turns them: fussy, and careful, until the angle facing Rachel's chair is the prettiest.

When he looks up, at last, Eliot holds out a hand; and Quentin takes it.

Lets Eliot pull him in.

"I thought you were going to go back to sleep," Eliot says, thick and achy; and then closes his eyes, as Quentin presses up to kiss his cheek.

"Mm. Couldn't. And—I heard you being—upset about something, in the closet." 

Eliot's ribs jerk: a rough, painful blurt of laughter. "Yeah," he says. "Always am"; as settling back on his heels, Quentin touches Eliot's throat. His jaw.

His gentle hands. 

"If you want me to get rid of her, it's not too late for that unplottable," Quentin says: studying him. His expression very serious; and Eliot takes a slow, deep breath, and holds it.

"Do you want her to come to—like, big events?" Eliot asks, after a second. "Like. After this?"; and then. 

He can feel his mouth twist, when he looks down at Quentin, who touches it.

"I know it's, like, not a great answer, in general," Quentin says. Quiet. "But on this one, I really do want—exactly what will make you the happiest."

Eliot looks up at the ceiling. Takes a breath: sliding his arms, clingy and needful, around Quentin's solid shoulders.

Quentin kisses his cheek.

"If—if it starts clearing up." Eliot swallows, thick. "Can you just—ask her to stay? Until—at least—I mean, for tonight, if she doesn't mind, and." He takes a breath. "Definitely. Until I'm back from the office, at least?"

"Yeah," Quentin says, "I can do that": and Eliot bends down to kiss him: once, if not _quite_ quickly, before he leaves for work.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

At quarter past seven in the morning on a Saturday, the office is has an odd, suspended quality: as though it's—trapped, or something, somewhere just outside of time. It's illusory, of course, Eliot knows that; it's just—everything is so still. Quiet. No dings from the elevator, since he'd stepped off; no mysterious thumps from the startup on 7; and—fuck it. It's _their office_—it's just the same. It's the same, isn't it? That wide, familiar room, half-divided; it's just—instead of being buzzing with—with other people breathing, it's just. Empty, except for him. That's really the only thing weird about it, isn't it. It's just—empty; and—and the light. From the snow. That's it, probably, Eliot thinks. Forcing his feet forward, from just inside the door: the building's just emptier than he's used to; and the light is strange: fuzzed, snow-filtered: a white, translucent glow, soft and downy, seeping in through the windows.

Coming in, he sets his coffee down on the flat side of his work surface, amid the wreckage of the night before. The sudden absence of its heat through his gloves is an odd, nonsensical surprise; the back of his neck prickling, uncomfortable, as he pulls them off. Flexes his fingers. The building's on radiator heat, so it's not cold. It's basically never actually cold, inside the office: and Eliot, unwinding his scarf, hanging it, then his coat, from their usual hook on the rack between the junior staff desks, isn't cold, either. Is he. He picks up his coffee again. Takes another sip, feeling it move—all the way down; and then—hesitant—he presses a finger to the top sheet of his half-written proofs. 

Sliding it—apart. 

It's—strange. He'd known, last night, that he was tired; that he was—a level of tired where he _does_ make stupid mistakes, and he can't work efficiently, no matter how much he'd like to; but it's still weirdly jarring to notice—immediately—that he'd messed up the sequencing on the chain of consequence for deriving climatological circumstances: all his diagrams out of order, and not even—not even out of order in a way that makes sense. He'd smeared the side of his hand over them, too: a wide smudge of graphite running diagonally across the page, to match the one he'll find later, he knows, pre-treating his shirt cuffs. Eliot rubs at the back of his neck, and then sets his coffee down again. 

Well. He came here to—to do his job. Didn't he. He sets that page back on top of the others, gathering them up; then taps all of them into a neat, compact stack. Well, neat enough. No particular order. He sets the stack on his file cabinet, then puts his laptop on top of the papers and his pen cup next to his laptop, and then he pushes the file cabinet to the side. Then he goes into the kitchenette. Dampens a handful of paper towels, and brings another handful out dry. Then Eliot wipes down his desk in slow, straight lines: back to front, back to front, back to front, each gleaming-wet shiny swipe clearing away—pencil smudges. Crumbs, coffee droplets. Eraser dust: less, inevitably, than he'd like.

Then he follows each line of damp with the dry.

There. Better, probably. At least—in some respects. 

Eliot sits. Waves his file cabinet closer: picks up—oh, his laptop, that's dirty too, so he wipes it off. Sets it back in its usual spot, against the back of the desk—he doesn't really use it for anything other than Slack and reading articles from Fuzzbeat, when Kady texts to tell him to; Lu had had him do an AutoCAD model of the Cottage his first week at Hogar, but when he'd finished it, she'd spent what'd felt like four hours looking it over, nodded once, said, _Excellent_; and then hasn't asked him to touch it again since. He rubs at his forehead. _I think that means you're doing a good job_, Quentin had said, soft, over Skype. He'd been—blurry, pixilated: and—and that was just—just another reason. That it had felt—unreal; that Eliot hadn't even known how to listen—except. Except that's just another excuse, isn't it? Eliot hadn't known how to listen because Eliot hadn't fucking tried. He sighs, and then tips his pen cup out over the floor: a little dirty-snowstorm flurry of crumbs and graphite and dust. He wipes out the inside, wet and then dry; the outside, wet and then dry; and then he puts the pen cup back where it goes to the left of his laptop, and then he pulls his liner markers and rulers and pencils out of the air, one at a time. Wipes them off, too, even though it makes him feel—silly, a bit. But it's still—satisfying, isn't, to put them back just where they go. Clean and tidy. Correct. Precise. 

Which—

—which isn't why he's here, is it? Eliot thinks; and then rests his fingertips, very carefully, against the edge of his desk.

His desk is—just like it was when he first sat down at it on his first day: no modifications, no spells. Black base, warm light wood, smooth matte finish; just like Amahle's, sitting opposite. Sitting in his chair, he is looking at—exactly what she doesn't see, isn't he? The back of her snowglobe. The back of its house. The slightly uneven top edges of Amahle's neat, precise stack of files, which she always taps down against the desk before she stacks them, so within each folder, the bottoms of the pages will be flush. And—when she does stack them, she does it in order, doesn't she? Lines them up, tops offset, so that she can see the top inch or so of each folder's front: where she's marked, in pencil, a couple quick, idiosyncratic just-for-Amahle notes: she'll erase them, he knows, before she puts the files back for integration into the Book. The folder closest to Eliot is blue and says, _waiting - lu, arches_. The one above that—green—says, _waiting - pickwick/schiff, grating re wm morris?_, if he squints. The two above that, edging closer to her chair, are, he knows, for revisions to the card catalogue system (pink) and the additional research Georgie asked her to do on trans-planar pneumatic tubes (grey), but they're far enough away from him that he'd have to lean over further, to actually be able to see what she's written on their fronts. Eliot can read about as well upside down as rightway up, which he knows isn't saying much, but—he's never thought about it before. Has he. That Amahle stacks her files like that, marching down towards her chair, so that she can read her own notes: with the most important first—closer to her, that is. And across from her—Eliot, staring at—at the opposite angle on her pre-sharpened pencil for Tuesday, the file folders for parts of the project she can't, right now, actually do anything about, is seeing—exactly the things that Amahle sees least. Or—or the same things she sees, only in their exact reverse. So much of the time, looking across at her is like—staring across an oceans-wide gulf that someone's asked him to leap: and he'd been acting, all this time, like he could do it, all the while knowing that he couldn't. Because that's it, isn't it? The reason. The source. Every instant of poorly-hidden overworry, every misstep he's made, trying to hold himself up to the standard of being a person he isn't: a person he can't, actually, even really see. It seems—well, stupid, now. It just seems _dumb_, because—because of _course_ he was never going to get there like that, was he? He's never going to get—_exactly there_, at all. But he's sure as fucking hell never going to manage it looking at her upside down and backwards; and then—then measuring himself against that. It's not like it's a fucking—_secret_, or something; that's just. 

Common fucking sense.

He is staring, still, at the back of her snowglobe. All the picturesque little flurries dusting the back of the house. Which is—_her_ house, isn't it: her family's house in Ann Arbor, bathed in that snow perpetually falling, falling, falling; while the windows glow bright—bright—bright. There's a splash of coffee on the side of the base nearest him. His fault, indubitably: nothing Amahle drinks voluntarily is that color. He sighs; and then reaches out to pick up the snowglobe, very very carefully, so he can wipe it off with the least-dirty corner of his last damp paper towel. Polish it dry, gently, while it prickles, warm and heavy, in his hand. It doesn't—hurt this time, does it. This time—this time it just feels fucking _familiar_. It's not—the _same_ spell as Matthew'd used on the heart of the clock. Obviously. They taste—totally different. But—it's a cousin, isn't it? That buttery smell. That low, steady, busy thrum. But—holding the snowglobe that Amahle's father made for her, with its tiny, perfect model of their home, Eliot can feel—something that he _knows_, in his head, comes from a spider-silk delicate mesh of complicated spells, all carefully aligned, perfectly in balance, made by a man he's never met, to protect two lives that Eliot can only see, at best, in silhouette; but what it _feels_ like, holding it in his hands cold and prickling, is a _wall_. The sort of wall—that you build to shelter someone, and keep them safe; the kind of wall that—rightly, inevitably—keeps everyone else in the world _out_. 

Eliot sighs. He turns it over: careful, gentle. He can barely see anything through the windows, their eaves heaped with snow finer than icing sugar: just movement. Light. But—but at home, through the windows of the clock, top and bottom, he sees—trees. The moon. The stars and the clouds and the whirling white snow: most of the time, looking through the windows of the clock, he is looking _outside_. He wonders what Amahle sees, in the snowglobe. If it's different. He wonders how it feels in her hands, when she picks it up. He wonders if—if it would ever change, for either of them: if it _will_ change, he thinks, if they follow her to her shockingly tasteful if somewhat out-of-season Christmas dinner: how does it start, he wonders? And—where does it end? Amahle's just—so generous a person, always: so she'd just—see them outside; and so, because she's Amahle, she would always, _always_ invite them in. He can—see it, even, almost: him and Quentin, at her family's big house in Ann Arbor, the both of them wearing her brother's frat buddies' borrowed Christmas sweaters in March, drinking—mulled cider, maybe? What else do rich people actually drink? Besides—revoltingly oversweet coffee drinks, for some reason, if they're Amahle; and all the wine that Eliot, age 19, was furiously researching on the internet, just so he wouldn't embarrass himself at that wedding he'd gone to in Martha's Vineyard, with Nathan Crabtree. They'd probably be drinking it out of, like—the second-best crystal, probably, for a _family_ Christmas; probably in front of a fire, and one very confused spell-stasis'ed tree; and—yes. Eliot can see it: Amahle and her brother thumping Eliot and Quentin on the back and introducing them to their half-a-million really exceptionally good-looking cousins with job titles like Whatsit Analyst and Director of Somethingorother; Eliot keeping an arm draped protectively around Quentin's shoulders while they slowly overheated in their borrowed sweaters, and got all the most scandalous gossip from her gran. It'd be—awkward, probably. Wonderful. Weird. An entire extended family, celebrating Christmas three months late, just because one of the kids had a shittily timed deadline at her job? It's—such a lovely idea, Eliot thinks: stupid, and perfect, and sweet; exactly the kind of thing that—you'd do, probably, if you grew up in the kind of family that cared more about—about _people_, Eliot thinks, chest aching; than they did about the _supposed to_ of things.

He swallows. He should really—get to work, probably. Do. Some proofs. Because—because he wants to—to go home, after. _Desperately_, he thinks: he wants it—desperately, to leave the office, and go back out into the storm, if at the end of it he gets—so he should get to work, so that he can go home and spend his weekend with—or—or just so he doesn't have to sit in Lu's office on Tuesday explaining why they're not done; or—or so that he can try to find—some fragment of that spark, again: even one single fuck to give.

So he wipes off his fingerprints. Checks that he got off all the coffee. Then he sets the snowglobe back down, very very carefully: back on Amahle's desk, facing her: just where it belongs. And—and the instant it leaves his hands they feel—cold. Hollow: he shifts, back prickling, annoyed; honestly, it's—Quentin's fault, probably: Eliot never used to think about metaphors before ten in the morning or, quite frankly, all that much of the time after, but—but now he can't make it—_stop_, can he? That—that slow—that sudden—that vast, drowning surge feeling, of—of _grief_, almost: rising up in him, out of nowhere, just because—because he had to—set down a fucking snowglobe of _someone else's fucking house_, it's absurd, honestly. _Honestly_. What does he have, inside of him, to actually _grieve_? _His_ dad didn't die of cancer less than a year ago. _He_ didn't have—his entire understanding of his family rewritten, and then ripped out from under his feet: and—he's still got—Quentin, and Margo, and his friends, and—and a job, he reminds himself, that he _does_ like, usually; and nothing—nothing that actually merits complaining about, not—not in reality. So what has he actually fucking _lost_? Fucking _no one_, he thinks, angry: no one who actually—matters: not _Margo_. Not _Quentin_. Not Amahle, or Penny, or Alice, or—or Kady, or Julia, even, since they're basically—the sister-in-laws he somewhere between sort of likes and mostly tolerates: not one single person that he might, actually, consider his family. Not even—not even his mom, he thinks: throat sore. Not even her: because he hasn't—he hasn't even actually _lost_ her, has he? She's just—at his apartment. Right now. With Quentin. So—so he could find her again, couldn't he? If he wanted to?

He rubs at his face. 

Well. Work, first, or. _Whatever_: first-year Eliot would be so disappointed in him. He picks up his stack of notes, half-complete diagrams, starts sorting them out by stage: environment—application—will—application—geometry—geometry—that one's environment again, except for some reason he'd done like a third of the material framework on the bottom-right of that page. He sighs, and rubs at his forehead. There's just—there's still so fucking _much_. There's so fucking much, and it's all already scribbled on, all over: completely out of room on four pages in every five; and every single sheet just—a total _mess_, every sigil modified or redrawn about forty-six times, resketched or with lines crossed out or 'X'es through entire half-pages, because yesterday he hadn't been able to find any _fucking_ erasers—

—so after—five minutes, probably; maybe ten; Eliot gets up again, and goes into the second conference room, to borrow its wheeled whiteboard, instead. 

A green pen.

It'll be easier, he thinks, when he can look at it all at once. All—all the parts of it. Split apart. Laid out, side by side, in the right place. Climate, environment, application, material, geometry, caster, will: van der Weghe had this whole complicated visual mnemonic for how you remembered the order in which to anchor the stages into the spell, but it'd involved a compass and ruler just to get the _mnemonic_ right, and Eliot had flipped it along the meridian half the time anyway; and besides, if you could do all the parts of it in sequence, truly, you probably wouldn't need to cast it cooperatively in the first place. But laid out six feet high and eight feet wide—well. Eliot's always worked best when he can see the whole—_shape_ of something, hasn't he; and—and as he works—it's strange. Because—because durable foundation castings take—well, this one will take _eight_ people, won't it, not seven; but still only six of them from Hogar; and—that means—Georgie, of course; and Hal, Lu, Maryam, Raj, and Eunice; with Amahle to the side with the apprentices, watching: but—but that's not _right_, is it? Eliot thinks: frustrated. The bridge of his nose aching, oddly: that's not—that's not—

—that isn't, Eliot thinks, resentful, where Amahle _fits_. And—and okay, fine, like—yes, it's crazy, just—_totally fucking nuts_, probably, to not—do it by the book, which even Eliot knows that Received Wisdom™ for casting durable spell bases means you put your most experienced casters at the second corner and at lead: like, he was actually _there_, for that lecture, in spring semester; so—probably Lu's just going to make him—do all of it all over again, and—and he'll do it, won't he, he thinks: grinding his teeth; because—because that's just—what you do, isn't it, when Lu Ximénez asks you to do something: you do it and you're fucking—_grateful_ for it and Jesus fucking Christ, Eliot, _stop_—: but— 

—but—

—but if. If he could just—just for a second. 

Just set that assumption _aside_.

Because—because the thing is that as soon as Eliot moves Lu off the second corner, and puts—with her gravity discipline and everything she'd done on geological manipulations for her dissertation—Amahle there, instead: as soon as Eliot makes. That one, single, specific, probably wildly ill-advised change—

Something—happens.

He can't even describe it well enough to himself to understand it, really. It's almost like—like the _spell_, the spell that they haven't finished making yet: like—like the reality of it, its flavor and its heft, is—a seed. A seed, that's been—planted, already, somewhere deep inside of him; and putting Amahle at the second corner is like—watering it, or drenching it in sun: the pale, weak tendrils of its existence just—just beginning to unfurl themselves, somewhere very deep down under his ribs. As though—as though he _does_ that: he just puts. Amahle. _There_: and then—all of a sudden, the spell as it lives inside of him takes up _more room_. Clearer. Sharper. The taste of it prickling like kaffir lime against the back of his tongue—Amahle, at the second corner, he thinks: Amahle, at foundation—: and low down somewhere so deep in his anatomy he doesn't have words for it, the spell

begins

to move.

Eliot takes a breath. Another: Amahle, at the second corner, he thinks. Amahle: who he sees—backwards, the wrong way around; and still—knows, _sort of_, a little bit, somehow: he thinks, _Amahle, to set our foundation_: and then—on the insides of his eyes backwards upside down he sees also Amahle, spreading her hands—

And then, after a moment, Eliot takes a breath; and reaches up; and erases—every. 

Other. 

Name.

So: seeing—green whiteboard marker. Liquid-gold sunlight. His smudged handwriting, and Amahle; and blue sky, the low pale tendrils of fog, the high shivering leaves—

—so, start over, then.

Start with—one. Finbow-Chau, the first sequence: which Eliot had of course put first, at the top of the board, dead center: Finbow-Chau, to open: and Eliot, looking at his fucking—green dry-erase marker sigil sketches without Hal's name next to them for some reason sees Raj, instead. Not Raj, in his baggy grey trousers and dad cardigans, hunched sleepily at his desk, glasses crooked, his hair a mess; but Raj, instead, standing straight, in a clearing. A clearing that, in fact, Eliot has never actually, in person, seen. But—but with the site photographs still strewn all over his workspace and the shape of it brand-burning hot in his mind, Eliot steps back to look at every part of it, starting from Finbow-Chau at the top and working widdershins; and sees Raj. Raj, in work clothes and rubber waders, because. Because of the _lightning_, Eliot thinks; as he feels it wash up his legs, shivering out across the planes of his skin: they—could start with Raj, with his spine aligned towards Whitespire: every other one of them still as Raj with his lead hand would begin—s braiding the first three-quarters of the framework for Popper 17, which turns up over and over in spells that work best in the damp and the cold, with the Fillorian fog coiling around his ankles and little—shimmering—crackles of lightning starting up in his sleeves, sparks snapping in his hair; and then Raj snaps his hands apart—magic billowing like sails between them—at the opening: and at the top, beside the sigil sequence for Finbow-Chau: Eliot writes, _Raj_. Barely—barely seeing it at all, anymore: his mind filled up with Amahle, sixty degrees to Raj's left at the second corner, with the weight of the entire fucking enterprise on her first-year full-staff back; and as Raj snaps his hands open, Amahle will drop down to one knee. A kick-drum. An earthquake. Eliot's trembling hands marking out the sigils for Amahle's deft hands sketching the first of the long swooping series of micro-sequences for sinking spells deep into the clay, heavy and reluctant, that when they leave will stick to the bottoms of their boots: foundation, Eliot thinks. A tuning fork, pressed to his skull and singing: Amahle, setting their foundation; and that low-down dark wordless _something_ seeping out from the insides of his ribs. Foundation. Two. Three, invitation: sixty degrees to Amahle's left, where Zelda Schiff stands, waiting for her cue (twenty-seven partial rotations in, that first buoyant billow of magic that bursts up like birds from the earth—): waiting to write out the mark of the Order, anchored by the three Librarians shaping the back of the diamond behind her; with High King Fen at its center, who will carve their welcome into law: her blood. Their symbol. Her writ: as all around her—everywhere between them—among all of them: that rope of magic flung from Fillory to the Library and back again becomes the bridge unfurling: creaking—Eliot sways—into being, rippling through the clay beneath their feet. And then, just at the moment when Raj first reaches the sequence to pull for the moons, sixty degrees past Schiff, at the fourth corner—Lu, Eliot thinks: not a matter of not being able to dare put anyone else so much as—it being _right_, he thinks, _correct_: Lu standing relaxed at the fourth corner with everything they pull in towards her—to her—_for_ her: Eliot's back prickling, all his hair standing up on end: seeing—that first effortless snap of her wrist, so—so he doesn't even need to turn to check the caster reference, because it will _have_ to be Lu, to stand at the fourth: Maryam could do it, of course, or Hal, or Georgie if she wasn't at lead, but—but Lu is _right_, he thinks, in a way he—he can only just—just barely see the edges of: her palm slapping forward to brand the air with a command; and, and, and that means that they'll have to use the Blenheim variation of the fifteen-stage sequence for integration, Eliot realizes, already reaching out with his pen: Lu fanning the five fingers of her left hand out in sequence past the vibrating hum of her wrist and her palm as Amahle draws the magic trailing through the ground underneath them up into the circle, so that Lu can _take_ it, take what Schiff and the King hold out to her: knead all that substrate into her clay. And Eliot isn't—he isn't _there_, is he? It hasn't even happened yet, so he can't—actually _see_ it, not really; because Eliot is, he knows, just standing in an office in Chicago, rotating all the sigils he'd marked out for the fourth corner because Lu is left-handed; and—and that's what _they_ had done, wasn't it? a small, far-away part of Eliot is realizing: in the Library, when Georgie had marked out the fourth corner: she'd used Blenheim too. Which means—which means—but Eliot can't—_hold onto_ it: the thought slipping away from him, running through his fingers: he feels—he feels as though the work is looking—_through_ him, almost: the slow, barometric sea-surge of what they will make from the whole of them, its spray sharp-salt-cold on his lips and his tongue metallic and gritty like the green marker powder gathering on his fingers as he works, erasing, correcting, because he'll lose it, he'll _lose_ it, he knows, if he goes to find anything else; and he doesn't—_want_ to lose it, does he? He—_can't_: that vast embodied sense of—_fitting_, he thinks, with a deep, half-inexplicable ache in his throat: as though he has never understood it until this very moment: opening, foundation, invitation, integration, and Eunice is their expert on _fitting_; and—and all this time, Eliot has thought. All this time Eliot had thought—opening, foundation, invitation, integration, fitting, _yawn_: without—without ever thinking, really, about what it was that fitting actually _meant_. A lock to a key: coming open, in Eunice's hands. So fifth, to Lu's left: Eunice, her name rewritten over his fingertip-erased smudges of her own name: Eunice, who will be just coming back from maternity leave in February with her devastating eye for dynamic sigil substitution and her razor-sharp hems: twelve years in her family's tailoring business, before she got hired by Hogar who then paid for her degree: all of that stitched into to one small hand held low-sharp-precise as she describes the building in its minutest detail, up from the archival portals in the basement to the wide flat leaf-strewn rooftop, which will remain the domain of the tribe of trees of the surrounding forest, in exchange for accepting Library cards for admission to their spring-and-summer series of poetry blooms. And then. And then, Eliot thinks: reaching out. With—every part of him. And then, the sixth. The sixth corner. opening, foundation, invitation, integration, fitting, and—and—

—and accord.

Accord, Eliot thinks: on another surge of—of that low, prickling wave that seeps out through his pores, skitters up his legs under his clothes, slithers the wrong way along the line of his spine. Trembling: accord. As Raj weaves in the snow that will fall in nothing more than a delicate artistic sprinkling for three months out of the year and the sun that will just-warm the windows whose shape they don't yet know, the book return and the white stone path; as Amahle chisels out the shape of their mingled magics' home amid the borderland mountains beside the wellspring tributaries within the deep flat earth at the roots of their silent, observing trees; with Schiff and the King holding a treaty on the edge of a knife while Lu reforms its edges to build a road that will run between worlds; with Eunice's quick fingers diagramming out walls, windows, stairs; all the way to, then, at the sixth corner: a magician to take, in turn, from Raj the fog and snow and the damp and the weak buttery sun, from Amahle the groundwater and the soil and the sullen flinty stones, from Schiff the fussy rule-bound Library and Fillory's zero-fucks-given pluralism from the King, to receive every power funnel and micro-portal laid down by Lu's fast blunt fingers buzzing with everything that stirs in the in-between spaces and Eunice's schematics in their brutal to-the-micrometer mechanistic surge: to accept each part as they make it by the teaspoonful and—and then hold them, _within_ himself: pushing at the edges of his power and his personhood as he becomes, for a moment—a vessel. A—a bowl, Eliot thinks, almost: or—or a honeycomb: trembling. A honeycomb, perhaps, in the shape of a man: holding the workings of three planets and nearly a dozen individual magicians: the space in which everything they bring together must be seen, understood, organized, oriented, labeled and maintained and aligned: so that when Georgie, at the center of the circle, stands up, at last, from kneeling and spreads her hands to cast, he will be able to give her—

—exactly what she needs.

Eliot's ankle slips, a little: stumbling. No reason. Stepping back. He gasps; presses the heels of his hands to his eyes: breathing in. Breathing—out. His whole body is trembling, a very little: a thin layer of sweat just-cooling all over his skin, under his clothes. He feels like he ran a marathon, or spent the whole day naked in bed; or the way he did after he stayed up all night on December 22nd with his desk covered in about twelve thousand separate vials of metal shavings and gemstone chips, wearing magnifying safety goggles and vinyl gloves up over his elbows while he activated his permit to burn through six weeks' worth of banked fast-draw rations, just so he could finish on time and still, implausibly, have time to clean everything up before he had to leave to meet Quentin at the airport. Opening, Foundation, Invitation, Integration, Fitting, Accord; and at the center of it all, Becoming: the beating heart, what they call the the seventh corner even though it isn't, technically, a corner at all: _Becoming_, van der Weghe had said, to Eliot's senior seminar on large-scale durable cooperative casting, _the thing itself_.

"Who've you put at accord?" Lu asks, just to his right, and Eliot—jumps, whirling: she is wearing, totally implausibly, jeans and a band t-shirt. The Bags. "Ah—sorry," she says; and then gives him a lined, tired smile. 

"No, I—God, you don't need to apologize, I—I just." He fumbles for the marker cap, unsteady. "I just, uh. Didn't hear you come in."

She nods. Arms crossed over her chest, coffee in her left hand: "Who'd you put at accord?" she repeats; and then says, "Actually—no. Don't answer that. You can tell me next week. That's not what I want to talk to you about, anyway. But." She sighs; and scrapes her hair out of her face. "Do you have a minute?"

He takes breath. "I—yeah," he says. "Um—sure, but—I'm not done with the proofs," he admits; and she shakes her head.

"That's not what I want to talk to you about, either," she says; and then tilts her head over toward the cluster of comfy chairs, eyebrows lifted.

Eliot nods, and turns back—for his cup, which is. Stone-cold, predictably, but sitting next to another: tall red-eye, marked _Eliot_, still piping hot. So—so she must've. Come in, and saw him working—

—and then left again, to get a second cup.

"I think, uh." He laughs, sitting opposite her. "I think I'm supposed to get the coffee, aren't I? New boy, and all?"

Her mouth presses together: hard, twisting. It's—it makes him uncomfortable. He's not sure—

"Uh—thank you, I mean," Eliot corrects: embarrassed; and looks away, taking a sip.

She's quiet, for a second, before she says, "You're welcome"; and then, "It seemed the least I could do"; and then.

Falls silent again.

Eliot sips his coffee. It feels—so unlike her, doesn't it? So—odd, and clumsy, and wrong: to be sitting—in the cluster of soft chairs in the middle of the office, on a Saturday, in the silence, with Lu. White flakes past the window, falling. Blurring brick.

"It's still going, then," he says, after a minute; and—looks, a bit: at Lu's eyes refocusing: flicking to his face. He clears his throat. Nods at the window, and then looks—back down at his hands. His cup. Feeling—

"Oh," she says. "Yeah. Unusually determined, isn't it? This year."

Eliot shifts. Not—

—not knowing, entirely, what to say.

He doesn't—remember, exactly. Not from—the farm. And he'd never even been to Chicago before the first time he'd come with Alice, so—mostly what he remembers is being cold, all the time; and how fucking circumscribed you were, when everything outside of central heating was a balmy -15 degrees. Like—hiding in the basement at school with Taylor: shivering, shivering. He remembers—not touching anywhere, just—just in case: not touching at all, not even their knees. He remembers sitting on the bus, how even through his coat the metal walls had sucked all the warmth from his skin. And he remembers how the snow had fucking—muffled everything: so every space felt—odd. New. _Wrong_: everything so blanketed and silenced by it that Eliot couldn't hear much of anything, outside the kitchen—

—not even the truck, when it did, inevitably, pull up outside. 

"I didn't miss it," he says, finally; so he doesn't have to admit to everything he doesn't remember. He _hadn't_ missed it, snow in the Midwest. It doesn't really snow on campus—not to notice, anyway—and in the Cottage, he was always warm enough. Besides, the snow in New York is just—different, isn't it?

Lu hums, a little. "I did," she says. Sounding thoughtful. "When I was at Brakebills."

Eliot ducks his head. Fiddles with—pointlessly—the cardboard sleeve of his cup. "Homesick for barely being able to see your train when it's pulled up at the stop?" he asks. Voice light; and then—

—then he looks up at her; which was, possibly, a mistake. Her eyes are on him: so, so fucking sharp. Her expression shifting, at their edges.

"Actually," she says: the smallest, faintest hint of a smile. "I like it when it's like this."

His ribs jerk: a barked laugh; he'd kick himself for it, but—but _she_ laughs, too.

"I know," she says. "It's crazy. But—I _do_ like it. Everything always just looks so different, in the snow." She huffs: smiling, rueful. "It's just—full of possibility, you know?"

Eliot swallows. "Like. For the spring?" he hazards: a little unsure. Lu's never really struck him as—_outdoorsy_, or whatever.

Lu hums again. Considering. "More like—" 

She pauses. Rubs at her jaw.

"Unshaped," she says, finally. "I go down to the bus stop and I lose my own house, you know?": her left hand, half-lifting. "For all I know, it might not even—be there anymore," she says: a slow, odd prickle, moving the wrong way, up his arms. "Maybe the world just—stops," she says, musingly; "just at the edge of my fingers": as they are just flicking—open: he can see her half-shape out—about the first third of Popper 13, looks like; and then she says, "And I might get to make it all over again": as she drops it.

Eliot—flinches, a little: at that tiny, prickling half-thought of a spell as it evaporates out into the air between them; and then vanishes. Lu isn't really paying attention. Eliot's not even completely sure she noticed starting to cast. She just shakes out her wrist absent-mindedly, not quite looking at him, and then rests her hands in her lap; and, after a second, Eliot looks down at his.

"Anyway," Lu says. Sighs. "Eliot—I owe you an apology": and Eliot looks up again, surprised: Lu sighs. Waving it away. "Not—I want us to be totally clear on this: I do _not_ owe you an apology for all of it, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. But—"

She stops, again. Her expression taut. A little sore.

"Specifically, I don't owe you an apology for not telling you anything about Cody," Lu says; and Eliot says, "I know," very low; and she gestures at him with her cup. "I actually do appreciate input from my employees, usually," she says, "but not, Eliot, for this. All right?"

He swallows. Nods.

"Okay," she says, watching him. Holding her coffee. "So—I _do_ owe you an apology, but not for that." 

When he nods, she sighs, casting her eyes up to the ceiling, for an instant; and then scrubs her fingers through her hair, then sighs, folding her arms across her chest.

"I grew up here," she says, after a second. "I mean—Chicago. Paseo Boricua. I'm not sure if you know that."

He huffs. "I did read your Wikipedia article," he says; and she laughs; shakes her head; and then—falls silent again.

She is looking—not at him. Not quite. Her gaze is fixed somewhere just above his right ear: not unfocused, not exactly, just not directed, at all, towards him. He wonders what she's looking at. He ducks his head. Fumbles with the cardboard sleeve of his cup, then—then puts it back again. Gets the hole aligned so he can take another sip. She has a tattoo, Eliot had noticed. He'd had no idea. Maybe more than one, even: if he looked up, he'd see the traces of it again, even without her unfolding her arms: a shadow just-curling out from under the cuff of her right sleeve, creeping up to the very base of her neck. If her shirt wasn't old, worn out, stretched out at the collar, not even a hint of it would show, would it? He couldn't tell what it was of. He wouldn't've noticed it at all, probably, if she hadn't been wearing a t-shirt, and then—raised her arms.

"I have a _job_," Lu says, after a moment. "I mean—I have, specifically, a job, specifically, with _you_. You, specifically. And—"

She stops again.

"What is difficult about my job—the job that I have specifically with you, not—" She waves a hand. "Any of my other jobs," she says, voice wry. "Is to know—not. Not the right way to do it, but—the right way to do it _with you_." She sighs, and pushes her hair back. "So—Eliot, I do not, as a general rule, talk about my personal life, because my experience has been that when I talk about my personal life, or even allude to the possibility that I might have one, _in general_, the people I work with take that as—prime evidence, that I am not professional. So I have _learned_—" Lu leans towards him, sliding forward in her chair— "over many years, that it's better to—exist, within my professional self, as someone who is as divorced from the person I am _outside_ of work as it is possible to be." She rests her elbows on her knees. Looking at him: "And I have learned," she says, very low, "that if that is true with—_most_ of my coworkers, it is _particularly_ true with my coworkers who are _young_, and _white_, and _male_."

Eliot swallows.

She is watching him: gaze glittering. Mouth set. Eliot's hand is sweating a little, on his cup; he wishes he could wipe it away, without looking like—

"Okay," she says, finally. Sitting up, letting out a long, tired-sounding breath: "Okay," she says. Nodding, a little, as she looks off to the side, blinking.

Eliot scrubs his palm on the side of his trousers. Jerks it back to his cup, just as she looks back at him: head tilted. He looks down at his knees. His cup, the white plastic lid—

He takes a sip.

"I can't tell you about Cody," she says, "and—I am... _constitutionally disinclined_, let's say, to talk to you about _me_. But—last night I went home and I ranted to Paloma—my partner—for about two and a half hours, while she sat back on the sofa and played with the cat and mostly ignored me, and then at the end she made an analogy about swimming lessons that didn't exactly make _me_ look great, and when I got cross with _her_, she—basically told me that I was out of line. With you, I mean." She sighs. "Though she did, also, tell me I was out of line with her."

Eliot swallows. "You weren't out of line," he says, quiet. "I was—being inappropriate."

"Yes, you were," Lu agrees. "But—not in any of the ways you _think_, Eliot, because if you _had_ been, if _that_ was what I cared about, what would be the fucking point?" She scrubs at her face, then says, "I mean—no part of me went into business for myself so I could run the kind of office where you think you're supposed to get the coffee just because you're the new boy": and Eliot—

—'s ribs jerk.

"Yes," she says. Flat, even. "It was a joke, hm?"

He nods, a little. 

"Yeah," she says. "I know. But—I know it also _wasn't_ a joke. _Was_ it": and Eliot.

Looks up at the ceiling.

Breathing in.

"That's what I do wrong," Eliot says, quietly.

When she doesn't answer, he drops his chin. Looking at her again.

"I—make jokes about it," he says; and then—corrects, because— "I make it obvious," he says. "That—I'm not respectful. Or—or I'm _too_ respectful," he corrects; because—he isn't sure if—

—as Lu leans her weight on her elbows on her knees, watching him; and Eliot—laughs.

"Te—my, um." He rubs at his right eyebrow, aching. "I had this conversation, Christ, ages ago, with—with my father-in-law, sort of, I—it doesn't matter. But he said—he asked me if I'd been in the military, because I kept calling him 'sir'," Eliot explains; and then—laughs. Scrubs at his face. "I mean, can you _believe_": in his absolute—campiest possible voice; and Lu's mouth turns down, a little, on the left.

"Oh, yes," she says, quiet. "I can": and Eliot presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, and takes a deep, slow breath.

The office is so quiet, he thinks, on a Saturday. Just—the low, dull hiss of the radiators; and—and his heart. 

And their breath.

"I do understand, you know, Eliot," Lu says, voice low. "I understand quite a bit better than you think"; and he drops his hands. 

"No, I—I know. I know you do." He nods. Nods: "I—I really did read your Wikipedia article"; and then—he laughs. 

Rough. And—

And about—

—about a million percent wetter than he'd like. 

"How do you _do_ it?" he asks. Swallowing, scratchy: "Because—I've been trying," he says: laughs; "for—_years_, and—I mean, my BFF is about 110% rich bitch, she grew up in fucking—_Malibu_, her dad gave her an Audi for her 16th birthday; and‚ and I really—I actually thought I was getting away with it, but—but _she_ caught me," he says, unsteady: "my first semester at Brakebills, because—she told me she liked my fucking _drag_": _ripped out of him_; because— "and—and Q, my—my—I mean, _God_, he's—just about the most awkward human being alive and he _still_ does it without even—even _thinking_ about it, because he—he just fucking _grew up_ with—and Christ, I know—I _know_ I shouldn't be telling you—_any_ of this, I know you don't want—to hear any of it, but—"

He stops. Shaking his head, his throat sore, and swollen, and tight.

"Yeah," she says, quiet. "That's. Why Paloma was—not very flattering. To me."

Eliot. Fumbles with his cup. Not wanting to—to even—

—_look up_—

"Eliot, I don't want you to think I don't give a shit about my employees," Lu says. "And I _really_ don't want you to feel like you can't bring all of you to work with you, or like _I_ expect—that performance. The performance that—that they'd expect from you at Willard and Rennalls." She sighs. "That they expected from _me_ at Willard and Rennalls," she corrects, "for fifteen years."

Sounding—

—well. Tired, mostly, honestly.

Eliot swallows.

"If part of my _job_," Lu says, "my job _as it relates to you_, is to give you the tools that you need to do _this_ job," waving a hand: "then I absolutely _do_ need to be able to tell you, when you are showing me something that I know that you don't, actually, intend to show; and to make it clear to you that it is part of _your_ job, to decide what to do about that, later. To decide—'Well, Lu, I think I _will_ drop all those _yes-ma'am-no-ma'ams_ from my vocabulary, but I think I _will_ continue to wear blushing rose sateen knickerbockers to work on alternate Tuesdays, because—in those, I just _feel so much like me_'": and Eliot's face—cracks, jagged, down the middle: around—something like a smile. "But—to do that part of my job," Lu says, low, "I need to communicate effectively to you that that is, in fact, what I am trying to say to you: that you might want to consider excising all those _yes-ma'am-no-ma'ams_ from your vocabulary, because Christ, nothing marks you out as the help _half_ so fast; or that if you roll up to Willard and Rennalls in blushing rose sateen knickerbockers, they're going to start, right out the gate, not taking you seriously. Not that that's not something you can use. And _certainly_ not that you mustn't do those things. That I'm laying down the law. Not even—not even that it's _inappropriate_ to reveal that you might be a person outside the office; or that you mustn't be friends with your coworkers, or care about them, or _worry_ about them; but that—that none of those things are _simple_. They aren't simple choices to make." She takes a breath. "And they _especially_ aren't simple, Eliot, for _people like us_": a slow, cold prickle of dread: even from her; creeping all the way down the center of Eliot's back. "And that, _that_ part of it," Lu says, "I was doing that particular part of my job, the part of my job that is about _giving you tools_, very badly, yesterday," quiet, "and I knew it." Rough. "I let—instead I let myself play that _role_, the role that I learned how to play at Willard and Rennalls, instead of—instead of pushing past. The ways that it made me uncomfortable to be, actually, the mentor that you needed me to be." She rubs at her forehead. "And for that, Eliot," she says, "I _am_ sorry." Breathing in, noisily: "not least," she says, "because thirty years ago, _I_ needed, very badly, someone to be that kind of mentor to _me_": and Eliot.

Can feel—

(—_horrifyingly_—)

—his eyes welling up with tears. 

He doesn't—know _why_, even. Not really. It's so—_generous_ of her, he is thinking: it is, he knows, almost—_painfully_ kind. And it's not like—he isn't—_sad_, or anything, he's not—_hurt_, or—or _embarrassed_, not really, to know that—somewhere in between that—awkward fucking conversation with Katherine Witherspoon at Alumni Day two years ago, and his page in the caster reference (_Waugh, Eliot | ewaugh@hogarenxs.com | Physical (telekinetic sub-atomic excitation [pyromancy]) | SUNY '14, Brakebills '17 (see: 'Syncretic Caster Integration for Structural Mesh Castings Using Low-Power Hewlitt-Mells Honeycombs,' May 2017, AVIX ref. BBN-MA-ODEF-392-01827) |_

_ _

_| March 21, 1991, Whiteland, Indiana_) it's not like—it's not like it's a _secret_, is it: not—not with—not with anyone, really, not—anymore: all through undergrad, he'd told people that—that his parents were—Australian ice-dancers; Canadian physicists working on the first economically viable hovercraft; Luxembourgian spies in deep cover; adulterous British aristocrats: three or four dozen stories at least, all of them totally implausible; the kind of thing where everyone laughed, and was tactful enough to change the subject, after; but Eliot would've said—anything, fucking _anything_, just to get around admitting that his mom had worked part-time at Walmart so she'd have enough cash to put gas in the truck, if—if she needed to go somewhere; or that Eliot's your man, if you ever find yourself urgently needing to know how to wash cow placenta out of denim. 

"_God_." He laughs, scrubbing at—he twists, for the Spongebob Squarepants tissue holder that Georgie had brought in as a joke, and Raj, enraged, had transformed into a tasteful bamboo instead: _I get that shit enough at home_, he had said; and everyone had laughed. Eliot laughs, too. Shaky. "I don't—I don't fucking know what's—_wrong_ with me today, I just." He takes a breath, trying to—calm down, except—except— "I never meant," Eliot says, and then. He has to stop again, against the rising—the surge of—_grief_, he thinks; but—that still just. It just doesn't make any _sense_. Eliot laughs. "What about—breaking down in front of your boss, of a Saturday," he says, "on—on the inappropriateness scale"; and then swallows, hard, against its quavering escape from his throat.

Across from him, Lu sighs. "You're not the first apprentice to cry in front of me," she says, "and you won't be the last—you're not really all that special, Eliot"; and he—nods. Laughs, because—because that actually _is_ reassuring, which probably—makes him some kind of freak, and then—then he swallows: again, again; as Lu sits across from him in the quiet.

He—takes a breath. Tries—trying to.

To dry off his face again: still just—fucking _leaking_. Christ.

"I'm—I'm so sorry, Lu," Eliot says; and then. Laughs, "_Christ_": taking a deep breath, slow. "I wish," he says, "there were—a way of. Of apologizing, that wasn't just—fucking parrot-chirping _I'm sorry_, _I'm sorry_, _I'm sorry_."

He stops. Laughs, again, and then.

Clears his throat.

"What are you apologizing for," Lu asks, "exactly?"

Eliot takes a breath. (One. Two. Three—)

Lets it out.

"Not—not knowing how to do it right," he says, rough; and then sighs. Grabs another handful of Kleenex, to mop at his face, and admits: "And—I still. Feel like—I've been so fucking—_disrespectful_": unsteady. 

Ashamed.

After a long, hollowed-out moment, Lu says, "I actually don't want to lecture you," quiet. "I know how hard it is to—to get out of that pattern of thinking": and Eliot—swallows. Nods; and Lu takes a breath and says, "But—if it helps, at all: there's no part of me that actually _wants_ you to think of me as your drill sergeant, or—or Doña Luisa from church who'll smack you if you don't watch your tongue, okay?": with—with her voice sounding—off, a bit, at the end. 

He looks up.

It's so strange. He thinks. To see—her faded t-shirt, her lined mouth and her tired pinched dark eyes; and think— 

"No," he says. Rough. "I—I know. I know you don't": and—

—and he means it, he finds.

She lets out a breath. Nodding, a little, as she leans towards him to say, "But I also don't want to be your—your _idol_": and—that one cracks, doesn't it. Right down the middle. She stops. Clears her throat: "Or your _hero_, or—or however it is you've been thinking of me."

Eliot swallows.

"_You_ build things," Lu says. "_I_ build things. We are building some of those things _together_. As a _team_. And what I _want_ is to be your _colleague_, and—I mean, I would like you to see me as a mentor, too, ideally." She sighs, shoulders slumping, and then finger-combs her hair back off her forehead again. "But for us to have that relationship—for us to be a _team_, not a megalomaniac and a minion—I need you to be able to interact with me like I'm just—another person," she says. "Another person like you"; and Eliot. 

Lets out a long, slow breath. 

"I might be managing you," Lu is saying, "I might have more experience than you, I might know a _hell_ of a lot more than you do, but—I'm not _better_ than you, Eliot. _I'm_ not that special, _either_. And as long as you keep thinking that I am, you won't, actually, be able to work _with_ me, because _I am just another person_, okay?" He nods, silent; and Lu, voice curving—down, says, "And—until you start actually trying to look at me like that, you are just never, ever going to actually be interacting with _me_."

And—

_Ted_, Eliot thinks; and then, _—huh_; and then—at the same time, all the while, he is thinking—

That.

That the thing is. The thing _is_—

—the thing is that after Ted had died, at first, Eliot had felt—terror. No other word. And it had still been—so fucking _mixed up_, hadn't it? A fucking blender on full speed with no lid, spewing soul-devouring fear; when Eliot had known Ted for a year, _barely_; and—and he liked Ted, of course, but—what was Ted, after all, to Eliot? So Eliot had told himself, he'd _known_, that that blinding, obliterating wave of emotion: that had been for Quentin. And—it hadn't _not_ been, had it? When—when all last fall, before Ted had even actually died—but. But the thing is—the thing is that Eliot, in the dark, in Chicago, alone in his too-big bed when no one's there to—to judge him for it, or be hurt by it, or weigh it up, whether or not Eliot's even allowed to _feel_ it: _then_, what Eliot actually remembers is that after he'd sat with Quentin, in the hospital, until Quentin was ready to leave; that after he'd helped Quentin with all the fucking paperwork and then after he'd driven Quentin home; that after Quentin had collapsed into exhausted, drooling unconsciousness on Ted's—now Quentin's—guest bedroom mattress, with his face tucked in against Eliot's hip, that then Eliot had sat up with his hand on Quentin's head and thought and tried not to think and thought and tried not to think and _thought_ and what Eliot had thought was: _I am never going to feel safe again_. And it had felt—it had felt. Like a _betrayal_: because Ted wasn't _Eliot's_ fucking dad, was he? What right did _Eliot_ have, to feel—_fear_, or _loss_, or _grief_; but—but for an entire fucking year, Ted hadn't just—politely ignored Quentin's _total inability_ to sleep in his own fucking bedroom, when Eliot was staying over; Ted hadn't just argued with Eliot about grilling; or just teased him, very gently, about sports: Ted had fucking—talked Eliot through his anxiety over choosing a thesis topic Eliot wasn't sure he could actually pull off; Ted had helped him analyze Lu's job offer, without ever giving a point-blank opinion about whether or not Eliot should take it; and—and most of all, Eliot thinks, most importantly: Ted had talked to Eliot about _Ted_. He'd just—he'd been—he'd been so fucking _open_ about it: how funny it seemed, in the least funny moments; how scared he was, and how angry, and how sad; and then—often just with Eliot—about how unhappy and annoyed and afraid he was _with Quentin_, and _for_ Quentin, and about leaving Quentin; and all of it had been—so warm of him; and so generous; and so kind; and sure, yes, it had made Eliot feel—welcomed, and included, and trusted and important and made _a part_, brought _inside_; but in some profoundly self-centered ways the most critical fucking part of all of it was that it had given Eliot some kind of fucking lexicon, hadn't it, for September: September, when every day for two weeks Eliot had gone to Midtown with Margo; and then she'd gone back to Brakebills while Eliot had gone to Jersey alone; September, when the hospice nurse had taken a break while Eliot and Ted had bitched at each other about the shitty offerings of daytime television and talked about fuck all that actually mattered, and Eliot actually had enough fucking context, _for fucking once_, to know that sure, yes, all of their friends were scared, but no one in the fucking _universe_ was as terrified as him and Ted. Eliot had called Ted _sir_, reflexively, at the start; and then Ted'd teased him about it; and then—then they'd become—well, _friends_, sort of: friends in a way that—that Eliot had always thought you couldn't be, really, with grown-ups. With anyone who—who had it together, basically; but Ted _hadn't_. Had he. Ted had just been—another normal fucked-up person, trying to handle something that, fundamentally, couldn't ever be handled quite right: and yeah, he was older, and probably smarter about it, and definitely better at—at doing vast, immeasurable swathes of it _right_; but still—still, when Quentin'd been in the hospital, Ted had just been—scared shitless, and avoidant, and helpless: just like Eliot. And that time, at least, they hadn't had to do it alone.

In his office. Fuck. In front of Lu: Christ. Eliot swallows. Over, and over, and over. Feeling—carved open. Cracked apart. Fumbling with—that stupid fucking Kleenex box again, wiping at his face and counting his breaths: one. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three—

_Like a waltz_, Ted had said, once; and they'd looked at each other, and fucking—_howled_ with laughter; and three days later Eliot'd borrowed Ted's car since Ted couldn't drive anymore; and brought Quentin home.

"I think," Eliot says. After a minute.

He stops.

Clears his throat, and reaches for another tissue.

"Cody," he manages, finally: voice rough; and Lu—

—sighs.

"Eliot," she says: palpably disappointed; and he—shakes his head.

"No, I mean—." He stops. Breathing in, deep: "No. Sorry. I'm not—asking about him, I—I'm _saying_. Earlier. Earlier, when you asked who—Cody. My answer is Cody." He takes a long slow steadying breath: pulling all his ribs open and then settles them back into place; and then says, "I think you should put Cody on six." He swallows; then corrects: "At accord."

She's quiet, for a long, taut moment. Then she says— 

"Hm." She leans back. Watching him—wipe at his face, fucking—_smears_ of eyeliner, still, fucking Christ. "Why?" she asks; and Eliot.

Swallows.

"I don't—I don't think I can explain," he says, unsteady. "Without—getting a little more personal, maybe? Than—mhh. Than you maybe want me to be. But—I do _know_ it's a bad idea, on paper, I know—I did _go to class_, you know—well, uh—mostly, so I—I do know you want—someone who's good at—a lot of stuff that maybe—maybe isn't Cody's strong suit, at least not right now, I just—I think. I think you should—" 

He stops. Sighs.

"I just—I think you should—ask him, maybe," he says, finally, "just—ask him, at least."

She's quiet, for a minute. And then—

"I would like to know your thinking," she says, finally. "If it's personal, then sharing it or not is completely your decision, and I'm not going to push. But—I never wanted you to feel like—you _couldn't_ tell me those things, especially if they are part of what's—shaping what the work looks like, for you." She sighs. "And I would like, very much, for you to know how sorry I am," she adds, steady, "about how badly I damaged your trust, with how poorly I communicated that to you"; and Eliot.

Swallows. 

Scrubs at his face. Nods.

Breathing in, deep.

"My boyfriend has drug-resistant major depression," he says, finally; and then.

He has to stop, for a second. 

Swallowing.

He feels—unmoored. Almost—almost totally. Like—his ribs. Could open up. Become wings.

Except—

Lu is watching him. Eyes very bright, and sharp: flecked with amber, the warmest thing in the window's cold white light. The corner of her mouth pulling—

—down.

"You were right," Eliot says. "Yesterday. Cody's not my friend. I don't, actually, really know what's going with Cody. And I'm not—I'm not asking you to tell me, honestly, I'm not. But—but I _do_ know, that—that for _Quentin_," he says; and then—he has to.

Swallow, and swallow. And swallow.

"Quentin's been through—the whole—doctors, therapy, hospitalization, magic, meds—you know: everything, basically." Eliot can feel his mouth twisting. "He's—doing okay, right now." Rubbing at his forehead: thinking—_now, he is_; thinking—_thank God_. "But _part_ of that," he says, tongue thick, "is having—a project, and—and a purpose, and—a project and a purpose that are _connected_, to—" 

He stops. Swallows.

"To how _he_ is connected," he says, unsteady, "to people other than him."

And then—

—it comes. All over him again: a wave that surges up into-over-through him, and doesn't stop crashing, and crashing, and crashing: all that—terror, again; and all that helplessness; and all that grief: fumbling trembling hands out for the tissues to grab them to mop helplessly, helplessly, at his face, thinking _Ted_, _fuck_, _Ted_, and—and then _Margo_, who's fucking—probably actively threatening to eviscerate Delta _right now_, what—what is his brain, even; and—and then—then _Rachel_, which is just—_stupid_, except—except for—her and Quentin giggling and giggling while she taught him (badly) to chop a fucking carrot, or they argued about Taylor Swift; and she's just—she always—how can he expect her to do anything but—and then—and then—

—then he remembers—

—Penny.

Because—because it'd been—Penny, of all fucking people: it had been Penny, hadn't it: Quentin's much-loathed former roommate and Eliot's long-time secret-sharing-feelings-time-but-only-with-alcohol—dare he say it—friend: it had been Penny, that day in September when Eliot had come straight from Jersey to sit on that fucking planter outside MMHC with Margo for a fucking _hour and a half_, feeling visiting hours trickling out through his fingers while he breathed his way through about three-quarters of a panic attack and Margo gave him her particular brand of low-voiced bullying pep talk and then told him to ovary up; and then they'd come inside to the lounge, to Penny (tits out, per usual) sitting cross-legged on a sofa eating pupusas out of a styrofoam container and half-coaxing, half-bullying, half-double-dog-daring—whatever, fuck math—Quentin (pajamas, no strings) into patching up a potted cilantro plant that Kady had thrown out a window at Penny because her mom had asked him when he planned to stop dressing like a boho stripper, and he'd told her—_literally_—to fuck off. Quentin had been grumbling, comprehensively, about Penny's abilities with a) girlfriend-parental diplomacy, b) general empathy, and c) horticulture, because the cilantro was root-bound and did or did not Quentin remember correctly, that Penny had gotten a 97 on their botany final and then lorded it over Quentin approximately _for fucking ever_; and when Eliot'd come over, heart in his throat, to Quentin holding one grubby hand out for another pupusa without looking up from the pot—ceramic; hand-painted—as he'd pieced it back together, brow furrowed, stubborn; eyes sharp—

—Penny had passed over the last pupusa for Quentin to gnaw on distractedly, and then Penny had looked up at Eliot and Margo; and winked.

Eliot swallows. Throat tight. "I owe you an apology, too," he says, rough, to Lu. "Because—yesterday I was." He sighs. "I _knew_ I wasn't listening, I knew—I couldn't figure out how to—_talk_ to you, but I just—I couldn't—_let it go_, you know? Not—not when it's."

He shakes his head.

"Not when it reminded me," he manages, after a minute. "So—so _fucking_ much, of him."

Across from him, Lu is still. Watching him, as he wipes at his eyes, over and over and over; and then—she lets out a breath.

Loud, in the quiet.

"I'm very sorry," she says, low and steady, "that I made you feel like I was asking you to"; and Eliot swallows.

Rubs at his face. 

"No," he says. Quiet. "I—I don't think you _did_, actually." His shoulders—unclenching, somehow, over and over: knots, upon knots, upon knots. "I just—didn't know how to handle it." He swallows. "So—'badly' seemed as good an answer as any, I guess."

He laughs.

"Well, I think we've _all_ picked _that_ one, at one point or another," she says, voice wry; and he looks up. 

Meets her eyes.

And—it's easy, nearly. Almost. He can, he thinks, just about bear to look her in the face: this person who wears three-piece suits like full-plate armor: over—over the tattoo he can't quite see: who has made—all of it a part of her, hasn't she? Her iron will, and her barked orders, and this unasked-for unexpected gentleness with him; her merciless standards and boundless assistance and—when it's merited—her unapologetic, abundant praise; this person who shows up every morning assuming they'll follow her and—and they do, Eliot thinks, because they want to. Because they want to see where she'll lead. All that devotion, he thinks, and all that love: all that energy that all last night, he'd fucking—torn himself up resenting: thinking it was—so fucking—_brutal_, so fucking _mean_: this fucking _trap_, that they'd all chosen to follow this—this wildly charismatic person, who deep down still valued them as little as that—

—but _that_, all of that, Eliot is realizing: that had just been—_made up_. 

Hadn't it.

It had just been—_made up_: it had been—a _lie_, hadn't it? A lie, that Eliot had told himself, about a person who didn't actually exist: not, actually, about _Lu_: who was nudging Cody toward the doctor, somewhere where Eliot couldn't see; not actually _Lu_, making sure Cody knew that Eliot sort of—cared about him, kind of, too; not even—probably not even a Lu who'd wanted to build her work on their backs as her bricks, he is realizing, all at the same time: because—because in the Library, Georgie had known to write up the fourth corner using the Blenheim variation for a left-handed caster, and whoever's going to be standing at integration, Eliot knows that it sure as hell isn't going to be him. So all this time—all this time, when Eliot had been assuming that Lu would do things by the book, and put herself at foundation—

—all this time, has she seen herself standing at integration, instead?

He swallows.

"Who are you putting at foundation?" he asks. Logically—if not Lu, then—Maryam, probably. He's never seen her cast. Or Hal either, has he, except—

"Amahle," Lu says, instead. 

Her eyebrows are scrunching together. Half-puzzled: she turns, to look at the whiteboard; and then back, frowning a little, to look back at him. 

"I—," Eliot says; and then.

Stops.

"I mean—I didn't hire her to just stand around and _not_ do what she loves best," Lu says, after a second; and then—laughs, a little: as though to say, _absurd_. 

As though to say: _what a waste_.

"And you're taking—integration," he says, a little uncertainly; and her brows just scrunch up tighter.

"Eliot," she says, "it's _our spell_. You've been working on it for six months"; and then points at the whiteboard: a reminder. "Did you just—think you were making things up?"

And Eliot. 

Takes a breath: all his ribs—settling back, into—into that space inside of him, where they belong.

And then shakes his head.

It's so strange, he's thinking. Heart pounding. Looking at her—this other version of her: middle-aged, solid, tattooed, in a t-shirt, her frizzy corona of hair fuzzed and glowing at the edges in the soft snow-filtered white light—: and, fuck. The clock. Because—because in the clock, she'd been—unquestionable; obvious, when he thinks about it: and just _fuck_ the cape; because all this time Lu-not-Lu has been standing on the right halo'ed in gold, armed and armored and bejeweled and crowned: but _this_, he thinks. Sitting across from him, so certain within herself that she thinks everyone else should be—could be—_is_: it's that, he thinks. _This_ is what makes her a queen.

She's still watching him. Her brows still—crooked, a little. Thinking, very clearly, about something he can't quite see.

"If you didn't think that Cody might find it useful," she says, finally, "who would you put at accord?"

He rubs at his forehead. Trying to—recenter. Refocus. 

"Um." He swallows. "Probably—well, the thing is, I'm not really all that sure what you want Hal and Maryam to do," he admits, and then—shifts. Shoulders prickling. "I mean, I've been through the caster reference and everything," he assures her, "I've just—I've never even _met_ Hal," he explains, "and I've never seen either of them them cast, so—I don't feel like I _know_ them, the way I—I mean, Raj feels right for first—to open, I mean, because—well, I mean, there're likely to be weather consequences, aren't there? So—if Georgie's at lead—"

"What about you?" she asks; and Eliot—blinks. 

"What?"

"What about you," she repeats, "at accord?"

Eliot laughs; and Lu—silent, patient—just lifts her eyebrows.

A question.

Eliot stops. Clears his throat.

Looking at her, while she waits.

"So, what," he says, finally. "You're bringing Maryam and Hal back to just... stand there and observe?" He laughs, again; and, when her eyebrows twitch up even higher, he shifts. Sitting—forward: "Am I even _qualified_?" he asks. Chest—tight: "I'm fucking—barely six months out of my masters' program. I haven't even got my hours to apply for part 1 of the full certification exam—"

"You will, by February," she says. "If you agree to anchor, at accord"; and Eliot—

—stops.

Staring at her.

Lu smiles at him. Leaning forward. "I almost wish, right now, that this weren't true," she says, voice gentle, "but it's actually been my policy since we opened our doors, to put the most junior apprentice at accord for the root castings, their first major project out."

He stares at her. "Policy?" he says, feeling—a little bit faint.

"Yeah," she says. "Because you have to spend so long learning the other casters, to effectively anchor at accord, that it's a really good way to integrate new staff into the team. And—on a technical level, accord is a push, usually, for new grads, but it's a push they can usually make, because it doesn't actually require channeling that much power. But Eliot—"

She stops. Shakes her head. 

"You know I've never been worried about power, with you," she says; and he swallows. "You're the first apprentice I've had where I had to actually apply for the educational ration cap increase for the office, because you pegged our meter twice when Raj and Georgie were still running your skill assessments. And even if it weren't my policy, to put new apprentices at accord, you _are_ qualified, and you're ready; and more than that—I don't know what _you_ see, when you look at your CV, but _I_ see a phenomenally powerful caster with a highly reactive natural talent set and _unbelievably_ shitty inborn control, who made the _totally counterintuitive_ decision to focus his entire graduate career on multi-disciplinary, cooperative spellcraft in which his own power would inevitably fade into the background; and then who _made himself into_ the kind of magician who could do _that kind of work_—lousy control and innate firebomb tendencies and all." 

Her expression is—dark-eyed. Intent.

"I think that's interesting," she says, "don't you?"

He swallows. 

"Well," he says, after a moment, "I've always hated to be boring," as lightly as he can manage, "so—I try, anyway"; and her mouth quirks.

"Yes," she says, "I know you do."

And he can't—he swallows. His throat—

"Because that took _work_, you know," she says. "For you to do that. And you chose to do that work." Her chin, lifting. "You are choosing to do that work," she says: low, "to become the person that you wanted to be."

And he can't—

"Eliot—." Lu sighs. "I like the weather when it's like this because—because it's like holding a piece of paper over something, to block out what's there, so that instead I can see what it could be." When she slides forward, he can hear her jeans scraping against fabric of her chair. "The entire city, transformed around me," she says: lifting a hand; "into smooth white clay. Reinvention, hm?" Her mouth twists: rueful, wry. "The radical possibility of blank space: waiting to be made a home for something new."

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/lu)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/lu)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/lu)

[The entire city, transformed around me, into smooth white clay.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/lu)

He huffs, a little. "I mean," he says. "Mostly I'm just—colder than I'd really like to be."

Her eyes crinkle up at the corners. "No," she says, shaking her head. "I mean—that's how you described it to me."

He blinks.

"You don't remember?" she asks. That—smile, starting up again: widening.

"I—the _snow_?" he asks: flabbergasted, because when has the snow every meant anything to him except—

"No, no, of course not," she says: laughing. "At Alumni Day. I asked you about how you'd got from theater to that joint honeycomb you and the captain had used in the welters match, and you started talking about—oh, God, this student production at Purchase, of some play I'd never heard of": as the bottom falls out of Eliot's chest. "And you just—_lit up_ about it," Lu says, shaking her head. Still halfway to laughing: "You went on about it for something like seven minutes straight, and I—God, I couldn't for the _life_ of me figure out what it had to do with welters, for starters, and here you are, going on about this play, and I was _so fucking certain_ that you'd starred in it and were trying to impress me, I mean, I've got friends who are actors and I love them, but—they're not known, generally speaking, for lack of ego; so then I asked you about your part, and you got—you were just _so fucking confused_." Laughing, still. She pushes her hair back. Eyes bright. "And _then_ you said, _Oh—I wasn't _in_ it_: like I'd proposed that—that you'd flown to the moon, or something: instead of being—a theater BFA student, performing in a play. And then when I asked you what you'd done for it, you said—"

_Well_, Eliot remembers—

—as "_well_," Lu is echoing him: "_I did do some light sanding on the sets_." 

He swallows. Because he—he'd forgotten that.

Almost.

She is sitting, with her head tilted. Still just—leaning forward, still looking at him: _so fucking sharp_: he swallows, again. 

And again.

"So I asked, you know," she says, after a moment. "I mean—I asked Henry. Because—_the way you said it_, Eliot."

He ducks his head. 

Jerks it, once, in a clumsy, awkward nod.

"And Henry told me that—that you were cast into the production running opposite it," she says. Quiet. "Weren't you"; and he takes a breath. 

"I was friends with them," he explains. Feeling—defensive, almost: still. "The director. And—and the lead": after—after all these years. They'd been _friends_, he wants to repeat. It had mattered. "Nath—the director and I roomed together, for a while," he says, instead, "during—third year, and then the summer after I graduated, before I—"

"Eliot, you were playing Benedick in your final-year spring production of _Much Ado About Nothing_," Lu interrupts; and he stops; even before she adds, "Even I know that's a big fucking deal."

He takes a sip of coffee. Fumbling, with the sleeve; and then.

He nods.

"But you still helped design and build the sets for the other production, didn't you?" she says. "Because—you were interested in it. Your friends were doing something _different_, and _challenging_, and _cool_, so that was the one you were excited about—you wanted to do it _with them_": as Eliot scrubs a hand over his aching forehead, his swollen eyes. "Whether or not you were going to play the lead," Lu says; and Eliot breathes in. Not looking at her; because—it'd been stupid, hadn't it. He'd been—a third-rate Benedick, in the end; and then—Nathan had gone to London; and then Eliot and Brett had had—_that_ whole disaster, just before Brakebills had come calling; and—well. It just—hadn't worked out. Had it? And—and for years, for fucking _years_, Eliot has just been—so _fucking_ ashamed—

—but it brought me here, Eliot thinks: like an interruption. It brought me here, to this, today.

He lets out a breath.

He takes a sip of his coffee.

"Yeah," he says. "I wanted to do it with them."

"Yeah," Lu says. Low. "So—that's it, Eliot. Company policy or not: _that's_ why I want you at accord."

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

Stepping out into the snow, a little after one, Eliot feels—Christ. How could he—_say_, even? The day keeps—pulling itself out from underneath him: the clock; Quentin's flowers; Lu: all his proofs still only about two-thirds done, and that, only, if he counts everything that's still just on the whiteboard: _Oh—whatever_, Lu had said, in the end, _this was more important. Those can wait 'til next week_; and then she'd told Eliot to roll the whiteboard back into the second conference room, while she taped up a note on the door.

_In use_, it had said, in her solid, sure printing: _(Eliot, Lu)_.

And walking back to Clark and Lake, Eliot can still perceive that—that _unsteadiness_ he'd felt, in the morning: coming into a place that was familiar, but didn't feel familiar at all. The light is still—pale, pulled thin: white and smudged, with snowflakes that prickle at his cheeks and stick heavily to his eyelashes, before he blinks them away; but mostly, he thinks, mostly, what he feels is quiet.

Quiet. Even with Chicago whirling around him, bustling with the busyness of a Saturday during the perpetual post-holiday sale: Eliot just feels—_stilled_. Pausing at the glass doors to the station, with the wind prickling at the edge of his scarf, he feels like—an anchor, sunk into the Earth; and no matter how many rushing duffle-coated shoppers and shivering, underdressed teenagers bump into him, until he took a step, he wouldn't move.

He takes a step, and pulls open the door.

The station has its usual grim, too-humid chill: but standing on the crowded platform in the quiet, Eliot just notices—the luggage. _Gosh_, a part of Eliot thinks, _that's a lot of suitcases_: while most of him is thinking about nothing at all. And then—some part of him (nameless, low down) comes awake: and Eliot—blinks. Refocusing: on a heavyset dyed-blonde woman in her sixties, her gloves clutched in her palm under her phone, so she can pick out a text with a finger of her other hand: the handle of a battered black rollerbag listing, slightly, against the hip of her coat.

She must—feel him watching, or something, because she looks up: he—smiles at her, a little: like he's never once lived in New York. Her eyes dart to the side, then up again at him; and he pulls his headphones out of his ears.

"Sorry," he says, "but—have the flights started up again?"

"Um—some of them." She pauses, and then says, "They're saying—this afternoon, or tonight"; just as Eliot realizes how stupid a question it was, when his train pulls in and every single person and suitcase on the platform shoves onto it: the Blue Line, headed north, to O'Hare. 

Eliot—waits. Waves at the woman (looking confused) through the window, as his train pulls away to take her home: just as Eliot realizes—that that was a mistake, since the reception on the platform is always for shit. He tries, anyway: texting Margo, _Looks like their opening O'Hare again. Or have you given up?_; but the blue bar sticks partway across the screen, and the little _Delivered_ notification doesn't pop up.

Eliot just—blinks at it. Looks up at the estimated arrivals: six minutes, and eight minutes, and twenty-four—and the platform already filling up with suitcases, again: dozens and dozens and dozens of tired-looking travelers, so much further than him from home. 

He winds up his headphones, and puts them into his bag.

The train comes. Eliot gets on. In the silence crammed in between bodies and suitcases he closes his eyes and counts down the stops: Grand, first. Next is Chicago. Three, Division. Four, Damen. Five, Western. Six, California. Seven: Logan Square. Eliot gets off: that long sardine-packed train disgorging just him; an older woman; two teenage girls; and a heavyset guy maybe ten years older than Eliot, wrangling two kids both under seven, all the way down at the other end of the platform; while about twenty-nine more people with suitcases are trying to cram on. Eliot sidles around the sea of coats and roller bags, careful. Letting them fit in, as best they can. The older woman has set her purse down on a bench, to button her coat. The teenagers are already halfway up the stairs. "Los guantes, mija," the man is saying, to the bigger kid, a girl; and then when she whines, "But—Daddy—"; he switches, too: "Nope, you gotta wear them." Setting the other kid down to cling toddlingly to his leg, while he wrestles the girl into her mittens: "Basta, kiddo," he says: voice weary, eyes soft. He pets a hand over her forehead, gives her hat a firm tug. Tells her, "Time to go home."

Thirty feet behind them, Eliot straightens out his coat, his satchel; and then trails them, at some distance, up into the snow.

The dad carries the little one, and holds the girl's hand. Turning left, headed north up Kedzie, while Eliot turns away to the right. Around him, the snow falls in slow, silent drifts. A car slides by, and Eliot puts his hands in his pockets: almost startled. Strange, isn't it? That it's not—midnight, or four a.m.: he feels like he's walking through—a strange place. A made-up land: Middle Earth, or Earthsea; or out on the Chalk with Tiffany and the Wee Free Men: as though he might be standing in the storm in Amahle's snowglobe; or even—in the clock itself, in those unreal, changeable woods: looking all around him at that wild uncanny world lit by nothing but that vast golden disc of a moon—

—except—

—except that it's snowing, isn't it. In the clock. So—all those people. Lu-not-Lu, and Rachel-not-Rachel; and Quentin-not-Quentin holding up Eliot-not-Eliot—they wouldn't actually even be able to see the moon, would they? If Matthew hadn't—

—chosen. To give them that light.

His phone buzzes, in his pocket. He picks up the pace: ducks in close to the apartment building on the corner, so he has a little bit of a screen, when he casts: Margo. Fumbling off his gloves, so he can actually read all of it—but it just says: _on the phone rn_. Nothing else. 

He breathes out. Looking up, into the snow, at—

—at—

—at the blank white veil of the sky.

After a moment, he swallows. Puts his phone back into his pocket, and then puts his gloves back on: it's fine. She'll tell him. Won't she. Because—because it feels—_impossible_, in some ways; unbelievable: that somewhere, outside the bounds of what he can reach, the snow might stop—but it does, doesn't it. It's not like it's blizzarding—in Los Angeles, or the Gobi Desert: it's not, he thinks, with careful precision, even snowing in New York. 

Eliot pushes away from the building, and starts back down the street. 

_Reinvention_, Lu had said. Inexplicably: quoting him. _The radical possibility of empty space_: well, it certainly—_sounds_ like something second-year Eliot might have said. Pretentious. Over-the-top: after all, he'd already been drinking, hadn't he. When Alice had led him over to that little cluster of people—Katherine Witherspoon; Vance Kang; Lu Ximénez, though he hadn't known that at the time—and said, _Uncle V, Kate, Lu—this is my friend Eliot_: brusque and decisive; and then just fucking—_left_ him there, sink or swim: already a bottle down, still holding the glass that Quentin had brought him shyly just before Julia'd swept Q off to go meet a bunch of horologists: a surprisingly drinkable California Zin. Eliot's fingers are—prickling, still. Too hot, under his gloves. He'd forgotten to cast the dispell, did he? Before he'd pulled them back on.

Eliot licks over his bottom lip; and then tugs them off again. Cupping his palm up, for an instant, to catch at an instant of snow.

It's silly, probably. He's fucking—walking down a major Chicago boulevard, in the grim tail end of a snowstorm, maybe five minutes from his apartment: but he still sort of—_gets_ it, doesn't he? _I like it when it's like this_, Lu had said. She had called it, _unshaped_: and for some reason Eliot is sort of—starting to understand what she means. He's walked the stretch between the L stop and his apartment—hundreds of times. Has he hit a thousand yet? He's not sure. But he's walked it—day, after day, after day: in all kinds of weather, and in every kind of mood: but today every ordinary brownstone newly surfacing from the whirling white as he moves towards it seems—just-constructed, a new thought: something, he thinks, that he hasn't ever, not once, seen before. _Maybe the world stops, at the edge of my fingers_, Lu had said, _waiting to be made a home for something new_.

Eliot swallows. Blinking—up: little flurries, whirling: against his scarf. Into his hair. He's standing at the light for Fullerton: waiting. Even the douchey kickboxing gym is—surprising, he thinks. Somehow. Somehow, for maybe the first time—ever, the "X" in the "eXtreme" in their name doesn't fill him with blind, nameless fury: no classes in the middle of the day on Saturday, apparently, so the windows are shadowy; but they've still got holiday lights up, blinking cheerfully: red, blue, white, yellow, green. It just seems—dumb, he thinks. Dumb, and ordinary; lovable, he thinks: a little embarrassed, in a dumb, ordinary human way. The light changes, so Eliot comes across, and turns right, for home.

All right, Eliot thinks. So.

If it were true.

If it were—real, Eliot thinks; and not an unstable, treacherous trick of perception and weather: if all the universe was—blank, and malleable, in my hands. Where would I start? Besides—with Quentin, he corrects: because some things—go without saying, except—except, he thinks, chest aching, when they don't. So. All right. If _Eliot_ had the chance to start over, remaking space, he would start—by making it be a space _for Quentin_. Which—well, the person inside of him that Eliot always feels like he needs to _explain_ himself to hasn't worn any face but his own in—years, really, but if Eliot _did_ have to defend himself, against—against how _overinvested_ he is, and _clingy_, and embarrassing, and just—just _generally weird about Quentin_: then what Eliot would explain is that the _problem_ with saying all of that is that _Quentin_ is never _just Quentin_. Is he. Because—throat tight—because the person who Eliot wants to, to make a home for isn't just—Quentin, his sexually pliable dreamy-eyed boyfriend; it's—Quentin, who gave him the clock. Quentin, who brought him to Jersey. Quentin, who'd gone to hide from everyone in the world in the Cottage reading nook; and then invited Eliot—_in_. And _that's_ what Eliot would want, if he got to rebuild from scratch: Quentin, and everything Quentin had brought with him: not just Quentin, but—but the reading nook, and his dingy white socks, and story time while Eliot sat with him in the quiet and worked on—thesis planning, random sketches, noodling on those earrings he'd eventually made for Margo's birthday the summer after second year: their inside-joke sigil pattern, drawn out of that tricky little Frankish ice-knife spell that she'd already adapted once and would ultimately expand into her thesis: using fixed bolts to anchor spells for persistent-portal cooling, which she'd originally developed so she could use a steel discipline cane to insta-chill drinks at the Cottage bar. 

And—and Eliot can _afford_ to start there, by making a space for Quentin, because he knows that if he did, then Quentin would be—right there, wouldn't he? He'd be a part of it, right from the start: helping _Eliot_ make space for _Margo_, too; and Margo just always—_comes along_, with Eliot, room or not. Doesn't she. Besides, Quentin's already done it once: because Quentin had come to Eliot—a little bit heartbroken, but Eliot had come to him fucking _partnered_: a package deal, not just Eliot but Eliot, and his Bambi: Margo, squabbling, necessary, beloved, resented, adored—Eliot's other half, who Eliot had _hated_, at the start of first year: the only person who'd been willing to be his lab partner after he'd accidentally set the PA building on fire, week two; and who'd spent the next eight weeks looking bored whenever he was doing something fiddly and dangerous on the other side of their table and then out of nowhere told him he owed her, so he was going to be her secrets match at the Trials. Two and a half months of the both of them circling, circling, circling before their orbits snapped together like a rubber band: that night that Mayakovsky had locked them both out the building for _not fucking trying hard enough_, he'd snarled; and then asked them if they _wanted_ to be sent home: _well, then_, Mayakovsky had said, and snorted, _what do you intend to do about it, instead?_ And—whatever Mayakovsky had _meant_ for them to do (Eliot's heard stories): Eliot and Margo had _become_ their answer, instead: the both of them turning themselves into bare burning pillars out on the planes of ice, fucking reshaping—magic, Antarctica, _their own fucking selves_, just to keep each other alive; Eliot a living shard of frost, and Margo a bonfire before him: the two of them discovering in the very moment how to pass their power from hand, to hand, to hand. Even if Margo—Margo still fucking reels away from—the _mundanity_ of it, sometimes, doesn't she? Not her circus, definitely not her monkey: this awkward weirdo who'd slept curled up around Eliot eight nights out of nine before the night that Margo had burst in to Eliot's room at 2 a.m. ranting about Sunderland; and Quentin had mumbled, _Hiya, Margo_, and then just _wriggled over to the side_, pulling Eliot into the middle of the mattress before tucking his face back down against Eliot's shoulder, and going back to sleep. They'd both been—startled. Hadn't they. Even then: Margo had just been standing there next to the bed, flabbergasted; until silent, Eliot had lifted up the duvet, because—it wasn't like if Quentin _hadn't_ been there, she wouldn't've got in. And—fuck, Eliot never does give her enough credit, does he? Because—because the _idea_ of half of what Eliot is just starting to be able to admit he wants gives Margo hives from a thousand miles away; and—and she'd _known_ that, hadn't she: she'd probably already been able to see it—always does—even all the way back then; but she still fucking _did it_, didn't she? She'd still fucking—sucked it up and made friends with a first-year nerd just because Eliot just—_liked_ him, so fucking much: his Margo, making room for Quentin; mirroring Quentin, making room for Eliot, by making room for _them_. And—that's it, isn't it? Why Margo is so much—a part of him: the exact same reason that Eliot can love Quentin, in a way that—that for years he'd thought—maybe he just—_couldn't_ love anyone, maybe: because of how much space Quentin gives him, they _both_ give him, to _love other things_. 

At the gate to the courtyard, Eliot's phone buzzes: Margo, of course. Of course, and always: _tomorrow_, she says. _laguardia 11:10, ohare 12:57. as in noon, asshole, not midnight, so don't fucking lube q up and leave me at the airport_; and Eliot huffs. Shakes his head, thumbing out: _No_, clumsy, as he takes a breath: _I wont_. 

He hits send, and then unlocks the gate. Knocking it open with his magic, not his already-cold barely-still-spell-protected bare fingers, looking—

—up.

Hesitating. Halfway down. Second floor. On the right: the three windows he knows are his windows: one in the bathroom, one over the bed, one over the pullout. He can't see anything through them. Not in the snow. Not from this distance. Not—by daylight. But—somewhere beyond them, is Quentin. Quentin, who'd fucking—brought him an heirloom; and made friends with his mom; and come to find him last night in the Whirlaway and played Connect 4 with him until he was ready to go home: Quentin, making plans for—for the bookshelves, Eliot thinks, heart aching: for the bookshelves that Eliot had made for him, without even really properly—letting himself think that Quentin might ever actually use them at all. Quentin had helped him with the earrings, too, hadn't he? Not—not so much the first iteration, when Eliot had just been—sitting knee-to-knee with him in the reading nook: fiddling around with figuring out how to spell-melt metal while Quentin read to him from _Sourcery_, _Wyrd Sisters_, _Pyramids_; but—but the second time, just after the end of last spring: after Eliot had lifted them, forever light-fingered, from Margo's dressing table; and then unraveled the dollar-store protection charm he'd slapped on them the summer before—the sort of thing that just meant that you were less likely to stub a toe, or that when you knocked your coffee over, it probably wouldn't stain your pants—so that instead, he and Quentin could work a custom-made nominist determinal Quentin had wheedled half out of Julia, while Eliot got the other half from the open sourcerers in trade. He'd gone with Julia and Quentin to dinner with Julia's mom—_since your discipline is deflecting awkward conversations_, Julia had snarked; and Quentin had kicked her, in the Lyft—and then Eliot and Quentin had each ordered Alice a 2000 pack of Domino sugar packets on Amazon and hadn't asked too many questions because eaugh; but Kady had still been the one that Alice had sent to explain it to them—_with very small words_, Penny'd drawled, from his perch on her kitchen counter: eating a black cherry Chobani, while Quentin flipped him off. And, well—Kady actually likes Margo, sort of, so she cared that they got it right. She had gone through every nuance of it, step by step; had walked them through sigils, the metamath, the etymological chain of circumstances: the idea of Margo's thesis-spell hapja gibara alloyed into the metal even back when Eliot was just trying to noodle out an appropriately badass shape for her earrings: Kady had shown how they'd gone from the way _gibara_ becomes _gibbering_ (as in terror) in English and _givre_ (as in frost) in French; and the way that _hapja_ became _hache_ became _hatchet_ in one direction and, in another, _axe_; she had walked them through how each part fit together and in the end left the _space_ for it, hadn't it: for Julia to come up with the spell, and Alice to refine it, and Kady to explain to them how it must be cast; for Penny and Kady to both watch—Penny holding a fire extinguisher, that dick—while Eliot and Quentin sat facing each other on Kady's apartment carpet to actually cast it: knee-to-knee weaving their fingers together, and the throb of their hearts, and the thundering roar of their breath: and then—they'd both—half-fallen backwards, hadn't they, when the spell connected, drawing down the very last dregs of their honeycomb, because their usual method for co-casting wasn't exactly appropriate for semi-public use. When Kady had stepped between them, to pick the earrings up, Eliot and Quentin had both had to scramble full speed out of the way: not even a half-second of warning before Kady just swung her arms out: the air crackling with cold, dripping ice, and a massive fucking black frost-rimed steel-bladed axe blooming into being in each fist; to which Kady had just said, _...Nice_, nodding a little; and swung them around a little, trying them out; and then she had dropped the spell, so she could give Eliot Margo's earrings back. Two weeks after graduation. Eleven days after Margo had gone in for her first actual day of work at the liaison office, and it had taken them about zero point zero six seconds to tell her she was wasted on the phone with bureaucrats so they were sending her to Fillory instead: Fillory, where the cross-cultural advice packet she'd gotten had a special section on how not to wind up in a magically-binding blood feud with a powrie, and the previous king _was an actual bear_. It had been two weeks since graduation, and eleven days since Margo's first day of work, which made it ten days after Eliot had gone into the city to have lunch with Margo and then frantically portaled back to campus, where he was temporarily (and illicitly) shacked up with Quentin (summer classes, to make up for how much work he'd missed during winter and fall) until the fifteenth of June (when Eliot's lease would open up, in Chicago): and coming back from tapas and two glasses of lunchtime wine, Eliot had half-jogged across campus, fully freaking out, and then paced up and down, up and down, up and down Quentin's room in the Cottage, just fucking—_vomiting_ it all out: all his worry, and all his worst fears, while Quentin sat with his feet pulled up onto the seat of his desk chair listening, listening; and then, when Eliot'd finally ranted himself into silence, Quentin had gnawed on the end of his pencil, a little, and then mused, _We should work her a protection spell_. To which Eliot—briefly, yet effectively—stunned, had said something along the lines of, _I mean—wait. What?_; and Quentin had repeated, _We should work her a protection spell. Like—a good one, not that stupid—Sumerian shield thing. A real one—I bet Julia has something. Um—cooperative, so it'll be stronger. Against the powries and stuff_. And Eliot had sort of—blinked at him, and then admitted, _I was more sort of expecting—like, 'Come here, I'll suck your cock, that'll calm you down'_; and Quentin had brightened visibly, setting down his pencil, and then said, _Oh, I mean—we can totally do that too_. 

And—that's it, isn't it? Eliot thinks: looking up, up, up, at the base of his building, to their windows: that's what Eliot loves, really, about Quentin: that—that _partnership_, that eternal fucking _we_: the way that Quentin treats—their fucking day-to-day existence as a kind of—long-running living breathing _collaboration_: him, to Eliot; Eliot, to him, for Eliot; Eliot, for him, to Eliot: over and over, back and back again. And that, Eliot thinks: that's what makes Quentin special. Not that Quentin liked—oral sex, or whatever; not even—not even, entirely, that he liked _Eliot_: but that Quentin, right from the start, had acted like—like he understood how fucking desperately Eliot had needed a home; and then fucking—yes-and'ed his way through two years of them _making_ one: building—_their_ home: _his_ home, with Eliot; enough to let Eliot make _his_ home, with him. _A home_, Lu had said, _for something new_.

Eliot swallows. Shivering, a little, as he ducks his chin down. Blinking. As he stares just in front of him: at the black courtyard door. Because—because when Lu had said that, she'd been quoting Eliot. Because—because that was, actually, a thing that he had said. It's not like he doesn't _remember_ that: that she'd said it quoting him, or—or even. Even that _he_ had said it: once, two years ago, to her. He—he does remember it, now that she'd brought it up: it'd just—been hidden from him, for a while. But it's not just—it's not that he remembers saying it. It's that he also remembers—the way it had felt: sitting on the floor of—it'd just been a fucking _classroom_, at first. They hadn't even let them use the theater in the humanities building, not then, not yet: just—sitting in a circle with Nathan and Lakshmi and the cast, passing around a bottle and laughing, in the flickering of the candle someone'd brought to play ghost-light; and Eliot remembers—how huge it had felt, being a part of that. How—_important_: like something was being _born_, in that empty space in the center of all them; and—and that thing, that thing that they were making: he had thought that it was—Art! The end product. Exclamation point. Capital 'A': nothing more, nothing less. But—but what Eliot had actually _felt_ was—was the _making_ of it, wasn't it: the act of sitting, in that circle, knee to knee, and—and _pulling_, from that mingled alchemical magic of all of them, _something that had never existed before_. It had felt like—like the same thing he felt this morning, setting the table with Quentin; or seven months ago, casting Margo's protection spell: the same thing that had pulled him struggling to his bare feet outside Brakebills South, shivering and naked, when Margo had shouted, _I hope he's about to raze your fucking building to the ground!_; and then turned to him, face grim, ice already clinging to the ends of her hair, dusting her cheekbones, as she held out her trembling cold hands. And—it hadn't come from nowhere, had it? They had already seen two of the professors—March and Sunderland—cast a Hewlitt-Mells honeycomb, once: a demonstration in PA of how to take a foreign magic into you, without letting it overcome your own; but—they hadn't actually _learned_ it yet: Eliot hadn't even known that that was what he was casting, back in first semester, first year. What he'd known was that their two magics were _literally_ as incompatible as it was humanly fucking possible to be, but Margo would still die, if he couldn't warm her up; that _he_ would die if she couldn't protect him, out there in the cold. And it had just—come out of them. From the both of them, hand in trembling hand. But—how could you fit all of that, into a thing you said to a stranger? So—at Alumni Day, Lu asked him how he'd got interested in the Hewlitt-Mells honeycomb; and Eliot had remembered that first frantic desperate instinctual casting: holding Margo's fingers tight tight tight while they shivered and shivered and she had gasped, _W-What are you doing?_ and she was an actor too, wasn't she, so he had said, _Fucking trying—to _build us a set; and hand in hand with him Margo had—laughed, huge, wild; and then—_taken a breath_: and reaching out on instinct allatonce he had felt it, her magic locking into place alongside his: that bright-hot-bright burst on his tongue, prickling the insides of his lips, all the way down his throat: that round-meaty almost-sweetness with an afterburn like wasabi: like doing shots of—of Armanac: he'd thought; and discovering—that it was the sort of thing you wanted to savor instead. Just the two of them, naked, in the whirling endless storm of Antarctica: as Eliot fumbled his way through fitting _justenough_ of his magic into Margo, and Margo picked her way through fitting _justenough_ of hers into him. And that. It had been that. A decade of casting, Eliot had thought: accident, instinct, parlor trick, practice: but it'd taken—all of that, to bring him to that moment, clutching Margo's hands in the snow and trying to save her saving him: the actual, precise moment, in which Eliot Waugh became a magician. So—so not quite a year later, Lu had asked him how the two of them had started using Hewlitt-Mells honeycombs: for welters, to power the Cottage sound system, in labs; and Eliot had thought—_Christ, I can't tell her—any of that_; and then he had thought about—that play; and then he had said—some bullshit about building sets: but he had meant—learning that. Learning what they could make of him: other people. What _he_ could make, out of—his own fucking raw materials: what he could become, hand in hand with—with a person he loved. So, yes. He had said it, originally. He'd just thought he'd meant—something else. He had talked about—building sets; and he had talked about blank space, and radical possibility; and then he had said, _—waiting to be made a home. For something—new_. 

What _Lu_ had said was: _Everything always just looks so different, in the snow_.

Eliot takes a breath, and squares his shoulders; and unlocks their building door, to come upstairs.

He smells it, actually, halfway to the landing; but he doesn't realize it's coming from their apartment, until he unlocks the door, and a fucking—_wall_ of smell slams into him: that round, warm, familiar aroma of apples, and butter, and cinnamon, and rosemary and honey: and sliding out of his coat, Eliot breathes in, deep: tasting—the clock. That—table, in the clock's fire-lit silhouette kitchen: even before he stands up from unlacing his boots to see—Quentin. Barefoot, in jeans and a black t-shirt, open hoodie: leaning against the end of the hallway wall. Eyes soft. Watching him.

Eliot straightens up. Comes over. "Hey, you," he murmurs, quiet; and ducks his head down, when Quentin presses up onto his toes for a kiss.

Sliding his arms, warm and solid, around Eliot's waist. Just—just where they go.

Eliot pets Quentin's hair back. Touches his cheek. He's got—a smudge of flour, just along the side of his nose: and it's so fucking endearing that Eliot can't—can't even make his mouth move to tell him, Christ—

"Weekend, now?" Quentin asks, quiet. Resting his cheek against Eliot's shoulder, and Eliot takes a long slow breath, squeezing him in against his chest.

"Yeah," Eliot says. "Weekend, baby"; and Quentin slides his hand down over Eliot's back, and then squeezes his ass.

Then takes his hand.

"We," Quentin explains, tugging him into the kitchen, "are making pie": and Rachel—looks up. Her big, uncertain dark eyes. "Apple," Quentin says, squeezing Eliot's hand; and Eliot—swallows, hard, against—against that slow, sickly-feeling surge of anxiety, and of guilt.

"God, that sounds—great," Eliot says. Swallows, again. "Everything—_smells_ great, too, Mom, I could smell it—coming up the stairs." He clears his throat. Clutching at Quentin's hand: "Apple pie's my favorite," he explains: almost—embarrassed. It's true. Probably—literally anyone else on the planet would judge him for that, except—except for the people currently standing in this kitchen. Quentin's eyes just crinkle up at the corners. All his dimples coming out.

Rachel turns away, so Eliot ducks down to steal a kiss: quick, before either of them can—get any ideas. Well, very many, anyway: "We were inspired by your clock," Rachel is saying, as Quentin sighs into Eliot's mouth; and Eliot lifts his head up, very reluctant, just before she turns back. "Um—the second window. With all the ingredients laid out."

Eliot takes a breath and says, "Yeah, I—it's a pretty great idea, I think, especially if at the end of it I get to eat your pie"; and Rachel's expression shifts: mouth going—soft, at its edges.

Like her eyes.

"I, um. I've never actually made pie before," Quentin admits. "But—I do like to eat it."

He looks—nervous. Twitchy: his eyes darting from Eliot, to Rachel, and then back again: Eliot clears his throat. "Well—you're definitely going to like this one," he says. "Her pies are like—Paul Hollywood could take lessons," Eliot explains; which makes—Rachel bark a laugh; as Quentin's whole body sways towards him: his face soft and warm and—and _happy_, and also—still fucking _covered in flour_; and Eliot—he can't fucking—_stand_ it, can he? How—_how fucking much_ Quentin always makes him feel: so he licks his thumb to wipe the flour off Quentin's nose and then _kisses_ him: once, for real, and exactly the way he wants to: barely even—_caring_, if she's watching them—

—and then he lifts his head up; and—and she is. But—but not, actually, in any of the ways that he'd thought she would be: not—embarrassed, or disgusted, or shocked, but—but _hungry_. As though—as though Eliot, holding Quentin's hand in his kitchen and kissing him is somehow—_feeding_ her: as though—as though—as though she has been—_starving_, in the same way that—that _Eliot_ spent so long starving, didn't he? That—vast, ravening monster that had lived inside of him, all the time, for—_decades_; that still lives in—parts of him, gnawing on his bones; that—endless, bottomless maelstrom of wanting without being able to name it. The monster that just—that _settles_ in him, when he can—see them, and touch them, be near them and a part of them, being near and a part of him: that vast, ravening maw of loneliness that—that he'd almost something close to forgotten: with them living—half-inside of him. 

Just under the translucent membrane of his skin. 

He squeezes Quentin's hand, once, and then lets go, so he can unbutton his waistcoat. "I, uh—Margo's got a flight, finally," he says. Draping it over one of the kitchen chairs. "Tomorrow morning. Getting in around lunchtime."

"Oh, thank God," Quentin says, drooping a little: "I was seriously starting to think she was going to miss New Year's": and Eliot—laughs, a little.

"I think she'd've taught herself to fly—a plane," he says, course-correcting, "and stolen one, if she'd had to": as he rolls up his sleeves.

Quentin darts him a look that says he sees right through him, but Rachel doesn't seem to notice. Looking—frowning, worried: "If the airports are open, the roads probably won't be too bad," she says, voice slow. "I'll—get out of your hair first thing in the morning": and Eliot says, "No—no," so fast he's—barely thinking about it: but—then they're _both_ looking at him: both uncertain, for very different reasons; and Eliot—laughs. 

"I mean—you're making us pie," Eliot says. Turning, to duck over to the sink, to wash his hands: he takes a breath, over the first warm prickle of running water. "Seems like the least we can do, lend you our uncomfortable sofa," he adds; and then—hesitates, for a moment. "Besides," he says, when—when he can. "The traffic's going to be terrible: New Year's Eve? After a week with _no one_ getting in or out?" He clears his throat, and turns off the water. "Margo can sleep in with us," he says, voice light, "she won't mind"; and then towels off his hands.

When he turns back around, Quentin has turned a very faint, incriminating pink, but the look Rachel gives first Eliot, and then Quentin, is—so far from pushing on salacious that Eliot barely has _words_ for it: she just looks—searching. Intent; and Quentin clears his throat—_also_ probably more incriminating than it needs to be, thanks, Q—but then: "You should stay," Quentin says, quiet. "We'd worry"; and then—shrugs, and adds, "Honestly—you're probably just going to prevent her from kicking us out onto the couch."

Rachel huffs. Her shoulders relaxing, as she looks over at Eliot. Eyes crinkling up.

"Well," she says. "I suppose—since I'm making you pie."

Eliot nods. "It's the going rate," he agrees. "For an extra night on our uncomfortable sofa": and she—laughs. Shakes her head. He rubs his hands dry—drier; whatever; _again_, and then says, "Okay," and then asks: "Where do you want me?" 

Coming up, to her side.

"I think this is sort of undermining the idea of 'me making you a pie,'" she says, wry, as he shoulders up next to her; but then tilts her head and says, "Could you roll out the crust? We've still got apples to peel, and Quentin's a little shaky on the concept of not overworking the pastry."

"This is our second batch," Quentin agrees. Bumping his hip against Eliot's side. "She fired me, after I ruined the first one." 

He's so warm. And Eliot—still owes Rachel about a million apologies, but—but right now. Right now he thinks the best he can do, maybe, is—is helping her teach Quentin how to make a pie.

"Well." Eliot takes a breath. "Even if you did ruin the pastry, I still love you, I guess"; and Quentin blinks up at him: big dumb innocent (Eliot knows better) brown eyes.

"Also, we used all your butter," Quentin adds, very seriously; and Eliot tells him, "Well, that's done it"; as just to his left, Rachel starts to laugh.

❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❅ ❄

With the pie in the oven, Rachel drifts back over to the couch, to finish off her baby blanket; and at the table, opposite where Eliot is sketching, Quentin's got his battered old copy of _Small Gods_ out. Q manages for about ten minutes sitting with his knees tucked under himself before he gets up—wincing—and says, "I'm just going to go—" and then waves a hand. So Eliot winds up at the table with his sketchbook alone, trying not to think about Quentin curled up reading on their bed, because he doesn't have much of any illusion about what's likely to happen if he goes in and joins him.

So instead—he sketches: nothing of importance, really, just letting his hand—_move_: trees, snow, books, bowls, birds.

A little rowboat, prow pressing forward, on a lake. 

The timer on his phone goes off: he jumps, a little; then waves at Rachel: "No, don't worry—I've got it." Standing up.

He half-expects her to protest, insist that he won't know if it's done, or remember to turn the oven off—but that's never actually been Rachel's style, has it; and instead she just nods, settling back down into her folded-up person-knot, with—with her feet tucked under herself in the far corner of the sofa, _just like Quentin_, _Jesus_: as—as she picks up her crocheting again. 

So.

So Eliot—his back still prickling—goes to check the pie.

Take it out.

Coming back to his sketchbook on the table feels—boring; trivial—_stupid_, honestly; _You could talk to your mom, you know_, Quentin-in-his-mind reminds him, but—it feels. Too huge. Poorly fit to his purpose: like—setting off to climb Everest with a Phillips head screwdriver, and a half-eaten box of Pop-Tarts. The snow's been—lightening for days. Hasn't it. Off and on. And Margo's got a ticket, and she'd bend the fucking stratosphere to her will, to get to them; and there's a pie cooling in the kitchen; and so—so maybe Eliot should—like, pack the letters and photos away somewhere safe, or something: whatever Quentin thinks now, he'll—want them later, probably. 

Won't he.

So Eliot sits down at his desk, neck prickling, and touches—the Post-it at the top of the first stack. _Read_, it says, in Quentin's handwriting: that precise, loopy printing that always makes Eliot remember holding his twenty-fifth birthday card in one slightly trembling hand while Quentin had said, _Don't bother_, voice wry, _Julia already spent about ten years telling me I write like a girl_; but the card had said, _Love, Q_, down at the bottom; so that—hadn't been what Eliot was thinking at all. Eliot thumbs the stack of letters apart, looking at—the ink-scrawled names and addresses on opened envelopes: _8/14/1918, MC→BPWC_, says the last, in Adam's pencil printing; and then, in Quentin's: _Amiens (?)_

Eliot's mouth twists; and he slips the letter out: _—terrific!_ he catches, underlined four times; but the whole thing is such a mess of pen-splotches and spidery old-fashioned cursive that—_A son!_, it says, a half a line down, and then—something about a birthday, he thinks, squinting; but even just trying to pick it apart gives him a headache. He slides it back in its envelope; and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.

Breathing in.

The kitchen. His kitchen smells like honey. Honey, and warm apples, and butter and rosemary and cinnamon—_their_ kitchen, really: because—because Quentin's said he'll come home to him, hasn't he; and—whatever Quentin thinks, Eliot believes him. In this, at least (at last), even if—he hasn't, always, for the rest of it. Eliot drops his hands. Props one under his chin. Nudges the letters back into a stack with the forefinger of the the other: _—terrific!_, he is thinking. What were you _supposed_ to write, honestly, when you hear your wife's just given birth to another man's son? It probably—happened all the time, honestly. Probably—half the kids born during a war got some random name stuck on them, that didn't have anything to do with anything, but—did it _matter_, actually? _Really?_ Look what being—the person Eliot had been born as had gotten him, after all: he'd've been—better off, probably. Thinking he was someone else.

_Read_, says the top. He'd hated that word, as a kid. _L'impératif_, he can hear, in Mademoiselle's cigarette-scratchy voice, _l'indicatif_: she'd told him to pay attention to how it sounded how it felt what held it up, not what it _looked_ like; and Eliot had fallen upon her advice like water in the desert. What it sounds like, how it felt, what held it up: halfway, he knows now, to the read-aloud spell Sutherland had taught him, his second week at Brakebills: brisk, no-nonsense; not—_sympathetic_, precisely, but—generous, Eliot thinks, in a way he had almost forgotten that grown-ups could be. So. So, in context, "Read" means, _These have already been read_, probably; not _Read me, Eliot_. So Eliot—doesn't. He just stacks them up, and sets them aside. But the rest—

All these letters, Eliot thinks, resting his fingers against them: that Quentin couldn't bring himself to read.

It isn't as though—it's not like Eliot didn't know, of course. That Quentin was—messed up, loaded down with baggage, _massively fucked in the head_, over—over the idea, really, of what Quentin is and is not capable of _choosing_ to be. Because—that's the thing, Eliot thinks, sometimes, about loving someone the way he loves Quentin, or Margo: that awful sense of—of resonance, he thinks, as his stomach twists. Because—part of what hums, in Eliot, is precisely the places they are most built to hurt him: just like—just like they hum, in those same places in them, for him. It's why—Eliot has to be so careful, not to _take care of_ Margo when someone's hurt her; or to push Quentin quite as hard as Quentin would let him push him in bed: because taking care of Margo feels good and right and _nauseatingly familiar_; and because—because even through that roaring rush, of Quentin yielding to him, Eliot knows that—that it's easier, for Quentin, isn't it: not choosing; they _both_ know that; just like they both know that it is easier, of course, only in that precise and narrow instant. So while Eliot spent eight months Eeyoring around holding Quentin's hand and retying his scarf when it was cold and tucking his hair back and gazing adoringly into his liquid brown eyes, terrified that Quentin was inevitably going to bow to some bone-deep bred-in part of him and leave Eliot for a woman, a part of _Quentin_ had spent all that time terrified of exactly that fear's mirror-image in him: the part of Quentin that had wound up in bed with his roommate, when his only real pre-Eliot boyfriend had been studying in Kyoto during their third year; the part of Quentin that had apparently been at the center of some kind of _deeply_ incestuous math league drama back in high school that he and Julia _still_ are amazingly cagey about; the part of Quentin, Eliot thinks, fingering the edge of the letter, that had—

—that had thought about it, Eliot knows: still a hot sharp pang; when Alice had asked Quentin to leave with her, just before Brakebills South. 

And Eliot—Eliot gets lumped in with all of that, doesn't he; and he knows that. Because for _Quentin_, the place where he keeps getting stuck is this: he had had, once, an idea, about—about proving something. To Eliot. Quentin had had—an idea; and he had followed it up; and that idea had ended with Eliot's birthday; and a night that neither of them, quite, regrets: not quite—but close enough, some days. Because the place that they can't quite meet; the thing Eliot hadn't understood then and the thing that Quentin can't ever really—_get_, in all of it, is that—_God_. _Quentin_: Quentin had just—_looked_ at Eliot, hadn't he? in that beautiful, perfect way; and _that's_ what it was for Eliot: the way that Quentin had looked at him, before he'd scrunched his way across Eliot's bed, to rest his head in Margo's lap. _You see us in them_, Eliot had said, in bed in the dark, this morning; and Quentin had asked, _Do you_ not?—but Eliot. _Doesn't_, is the thing. He never has. If—Beth and Matthew are defined by—_this_, he thinks, with a sharp, twisting knot in his gut: then Eliot—can't see anything except how Quentin and Eliot _aren't_. Because—because Eliot knows Margo's a woman, obviously; and beautiful and amazing in bed and honestly, under any other circumstances Eliot would think that a nerd like Quentin should feel _honored_ that he ever got to hit that—but Eliot never, not in almost a fucking _year_ of idiocy over Quentin's weeks of big sad eyes over Alice: not in all that time had it ever actually _occurred_ to Eliot, to worry about Margo and Quentin. Not when Quentin gave Eliot that look, and then slid across to her on Eliot's bedspread; not later, while she kissed him, while she knelt up naked over his hips. Not even—not even while Quentin was going down on her, red-faced, eyes closed, blissed out; and Margo had panted into Eliot's mouth. It had just felt—

Lovely. Like a _gift_: the two people he loved most in the world, and for a little while, he got to love them like that: it had felt like—a vacation, to another country, where you drank wine all day and ate too much fried food and lay out in the sand: and sure, maybe it wasn't—what you wanted from your life, day in, day out, but—but it'd felt—so _perfect_, to Eliot, such—such a lovely, luminous night; and Quentin—knew that, and believed that; and of course also didn't know or believe it at all: because for him a _part_ of it had also been—a reminder. The map of a trajectory, that Quentin felt—was _written into him_—

—but, at least, thank God: only on his mother's side.

Eliot scrubs at his face. 

Sighs.

He reaches for the next letter, on the other, much less orderly stack. He can—do this, though, can't he? Sort them out; put them in order, maybe: _9/4/1915, MC→BPWC_, says the letter on top: probably about when he went to France, from what Quentin's said about the history. _5/9/1911, MC→BPWC_: so that'd be—what? Not Brakebills: the graduation photo'd been from 1909, so—but he'd gone to MIT after, though, Eliot remembers. Hadn't he. Right. _Runs in the family_, Eliot thinks, rueful, chest aching; as he tucks it in front of the letter from 1915, and flips up the next: _1/29/1906, MC→WP_, which Quentin's not likely to be _more_ interested in now, is he, but it still goes at the front; and then—_12/07/1912, WP→BPWC_—which, _God_. 1912? No good showing _that_ to Quentin, then, except—

—except. Except that they were all _friends_, weren't they? You only had to look at—those four bajillion huge, awkward joint family photos, Coldwaters and Pratts and Porter-Wildes (oh my): they'd been _friends_. They'd _grown up_ together. The boys had all gone to prep school together; they were practically—_family_: though of course—it wasn't like that made it any _better_. Eliot sighs, and turns it over. _4/22/1928, NSPW→BPWC_, says the next: very late. And—that'd be—hm, Beth's mother, probably; or... an aunt-by-marriage? going by the discarded _S_; but either way, 1928 goes right at the back. Then another to Walter, from the Brakebills days, and then six more in a row from Matthew to Beth: 1907, 1915, 1915, 1916, 1907, 1908. Another from Walter to Beth—this one from 1926, hm—and then one from an _FP_ to Walter, from 1907?—oh, but one of his brothers was named Frank, or Frederick, or something like that, wasn't he? Probably, Eliot thinks. There were so many of them. Quentin and Eliot had practically had to make—a diagram, Eliot thinks, blank, looking down at the next letter, no envelope but folded and marked with pencil at the folded over edge to say: _10/19/1908, MC→_

And then.

Nothing else.

1908, Eliot thinks. Frowning to himself: 1908, and Matthew graduated in 1909: so—still at Brakebills, then. _10/19/1908, MC→_: as _that's weird_, Eliot is thinking. Because—Adam Coldwater was a historian, wasn't he? But—but at some point, in the sixties or seventies, on a letter from his grandfather in 1908, Adam Coldwater had noted: _10/19/1908, MC→_; and then—

—then. 

Then he had stopped.

Eliot licks over his bottom lip, and unfolds the letter.

The whole thing is—an awful scrawl, smudged in places: a lefty, probably, Eliot guesses, from the way it's smeared. (He'd tried, very briefly, to use a fountain pen back in college: still one of the few affectations he's discarded entirely for practical reasons.) And the cursive and the old-fashionedness together would make it—almost totally illegible, probably, even if you weren't—you know, kind of—not a great friend, Eliot thinks, of the written word: he glances up at his mom, still frowning over her baby blanket, and not paying any attention to him. Eliot slips his phone out of his pocket, and his extra set of earbuds out of his desk drawer, and makes sure he's got some Patti Smith queued up in case he needs to pretend he was actually listening to something; and then he tucks his hands under his desk, and casts.

_October seventeenth_, he hears, _Nineteen-oh-eight_: and Eliot closes his eyes.

A little while later he opens them again, and then sets the letter aside.

1904, the earliest. And then—1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908 and 1909: and then with a kind of—_hunger_, almost, that Eliot barely feels like he can manage to hold inside himself he finds—1910 and 1911 and 1912, and then three years, he is thinking, scrabbling through the pile: three years without a single letter at all and then—1915, and letter after letter after letter, sent to Brooklyn, from the muddy fields of France. And—nothing, _nothing_, not in—_any_ of them—

—but they must've been censored, Eliot realizes. Even—even an American, who'd gone to France as a volunteer, who fixed ambulances, because—as he'd wrote home, ever-cheerful—_no man with a lick of sense would ever back_ me _in a fight_.

Eliot listens to—all of them, almost. Fingering—the edges of that first letter: _10/19/1908, MC→_. All these letters, all together, that had ended up hidden in a trunk in Ted Coldwater's attic: untouched, nearly, for a lifetime: Eliot wipes off his face, then picks up a pencil and a Post-it, because he doesn't want to—

—to fucking. _Disturb the fucking historical record_.

Does he.

When he comes into the bedroom Quentin looks up, owlish and blinky: as Eliot shuts the door, and comes over to sit on the edge of the bed.

"I—oh, shit, are you okay?" Quentin pushes himself up, straightening; tucking his pen into his book to mark his place. "Jesus. Is it—Is Margo okay, what's—mm": as Eliot leans over and kisses him, once, just—just because; and then—

"I think," Eliot croaks; and then. 

Stops.

Clears his throat.

"I think," Eliot says, "you need to read these": and then—he holds out two letters. That first one, from 1908; and—and another, from—

Quentin swallows. "El," he says: thick. "I really don't—I don't know if I can."

Eliot nods. "I know," he says. "I—get it, honestly—I do. But—" 

He stops. Swallowing: "I really think," he says, rough. "I think you should read these two. Just—just these ones."

Quentin's mouth twists. He ducks his head, pushing—his hair back, as though—as though he still even really _can_—

"Or," Eliot offers. "Or, um—I guess. I mean." He swallows, unfolding—the first, with shaking hands: "I mean, I guess—I can, I'm sort of. A shitty reader, but—"

_October nineteenth_, he can still hear: _Nineteen-oh-eight_.

"October 19," he reads. "1908." 

He looks up at Quentin, who just—is _looking_ at him, with that carved-open split-in-two face—; so Eliot—

—looks back down at the page.

"Please," he says, very quietly; and Quentin—shifts; and then whispers, "Okay."

Eliot swallows.

Nods.

"Dear Walter," he reads; and then. "Over the last weekend, um. as you know—" He shoves his hair off his forehead, and then puts the second letter, folded, to cover Matthew's messy scrawl, starting the next line down. "M-my brother George was home on leave, so I managed to put aside my books for the whole of Saturday and—and much of Sunday—" his hands shake, when he shifts the other letter down— "um—and persuaded Hank Silburne—n-not for nothing, mind you—to motor down with me, since." A breath. "Since he's brought his Pierce-Arrow up for the semester—" Eliot has to stop. Swallow: _exhausting_, that was the word Matthew'd used. Wasn't it— "—a Model 24-28N," he reads, "and he hasn't even _taken it apart_, if you can believe it!": but Matthew, Eliot suspected, was probably pretty exhausting, too. "Mother was delighted to have another man about," he reads: slow, and clumsy; and then—presses his thumb down over the _about_: "um—as, , as you can imagine—the household never, um—has—God. _Sorry_."

"It's okay, El," Quentin says, quiet, and then—

—holds out his pen.

Eliot looks up; and Quentin ducks his head.

"If—I mean," Quentin says. "If you want to—keep going, you don't have to—"

"I'm not going to _underline_ on your _incredibly historical and important family letters_, _Quentin_," says Eliot, exasperated; and Quentin meets his eyes.

"Why not?" he says. "They're yours, too."

And Eliot—looks back down at—at Matthew's scratchy, oversized scrawl: swimming in front of him but—but for _once_, for fucking _once_, just—just the way it probably would for—_anyone_, and then he. Sets the letters down on his knees, laughing a little, to take the Kleenex that Quentin's holding out; and mop, shaky and overwhelmed, at his eyes. 

Quentin rests a hand on his knee. Rubbing, a little. Gentle.

"Okay," Eliot says: thick. "Okay, I—since you're—willing to put up with me—massacring the text, I—um. Where the fuck was I?" Spreading the letters out in his lap, blinking and raw.

"The household never has," Quentin prompts, quiet.

"Oh—right. Um—the household never. Never has really rearranged itself," Eliot reads: pressing—the cap of the pen to each word as he goes, because— "to only feeding Thomas and Sarah." Because Quentin might—regret that, at some point, he is thinking, and then—then Eliot takes a breath; and takes the cap off the pen. "Hank was terribly polite about Albany," he reads, as Quentin squeezes his knee: "and it of course was delighted with him, and by Saturday evening everyone we met was warning me to have a care with Beth!" Eliot swallows, as he turns to the next page. "I suppose he _is_, um—sorry, hold on." Slow circles; Quentin's warm hand. Eliot gets—the other letter back into place, his pen on the _is_, which Matthew had underlined twice, and then: "I suppose he _is_ very good-looking," Eliot says, "but—of all possible absurdities, I ask you." 

"El," Quentin says, quiet; and Eliot looks up, just for an instant, at Quentin's soft, serious face.

Those big, vulnerable brown eyes.

"Do you trust me?" he asks; and Quentin lets out a breath.

"Yeah," he says, quiet. "Always." Squeezing.

"Okay," Eliot says, watching him, waiting; and after a second Quentin swallows, and then asks, "Keep going?"

Eliot swallows. Looks back down at the page. "Well. In any event, I, uh. I gave him the tour all the way along our usual meander around the lake, and then all the way out through the woods to the old L-Library—": his throat—. "—which I suppose we probably ought to rename, now that none of us are young enough or stupid enough to keep books out there in the damp, but, well, none of the more up-to-date descriptors of its purpose are precisely fit for mixed company, are they?": —tight, like. Like his heart. Or. "Revisiting our old haunts was fine enough,," he says: scratchy, "but it was clear weather won't hold much longer, will it; and the cold drove us in before we'd done much other than look it over—'Why, yes, Matthew, that is indeed a lake'; 'Yes, Matthew, it's of course a _very_ fine tree'—and besides—" Eliot has to. Stop, for a second, because he can't get—enough air, or—or. He takes a breath. Another. And then—he can see Quentin shifting, getting ready to ask—so Eliot has to just—just barrel on ahead: "—and besides," he reads, "some of the magic is always gone from the place, you know, without you.": and Quentin's hand stills, on his knee.

Eliot pushes his hair off his forehead. Feeling—impatient. Or— "On Sunday morning early I found myself walking all the way out to our glade again: my body half expected to find you, I think." He stops. Feeling—that same hot-trembly feeling, all over: "Instead," he says, "I found myself watching the sun rise in the silence of, of your absence while I froze half to death; so I got—sorry. So, um—so when I got home again I dug up all your letters from underneath the frame of my bureau; and after that—I f-felt. I felt made up of the summer again. As though": and Eliot's voice cracks; so he has to. Swallow, and swallow, and swallow, before he can manage— "As though I could've melted all that frost, sparkling all across the fields.."

Looking up, just for a second, at Quentin's bent brown head.

Eliot looks back down at the letters. His pen—Quentin's pen. Resting just at the end of the line.

He moves it to the start of the next paragraph.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/matthew_and_walter)

[Some of the magic is always gone from the place, you know, without you.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/matthew_and_walter)

"Coming back to Brakebills," Eliot reads, "always feels like it ought to feel like coming home; but it doesn't. I remember so clearly, you know, when you came back after your first year at Columbia; and feeling—": fuck. He swallows, tracing out— "as though—there is a tremendously clever device": and Jesus, fuck Matthew and his fucking parentheticals: "I can't remember if I've ever demonstrated one for you, but it allows you to use a, uh—" _po-ten-ti-AH-me-ter_, the spell had said, with, so— "a potentiometer and a galvanometer," Eliot says, half—from memory, half from the page— "along with two other fixed resistances to measure the resistance of a third; and—there's a _feeling_, I can't describe it, but—": because he doesn't—he doesn't want. To get it wrong. "That little w-well—" He swallows. "That little well of electricity inside me, I expect, that m-makes me a magician—" and Eliot's voice cracks, again. Quentin shifts, reaching over to his nightstand, for his two-thirds-empty glass of water. "Thanks," Eliot croaks; and then. Finishes it, and smooths. The paper out, over his bent knees. "I can _feel_ it, you know," he explains, "when the potentiometer is adjusted correctly, and the voltage in the galvanometer drops to zero. Professor Bigby's rather fond of that particular skill, I think, since she keeps having me come around to help me recalibrate bits of her equipment." Quentin huffs; and Eliot takes a breath. "And—it felt like that, you know," he says: clumsy and slow, "Seeing you again." _As_, he remembers, tracing: saying— "As though all the parts in me were, for the first time since September, perfectly aligned." Breathing—in. "But I was wrong, wasn't I?" he says, "I was wrong then, because you kissed me, and then I was as I should be," Matthew had written; "And I was wrong then, because I touched you and then I was as I should be," Eliot reads; "and I was wrong then, too, because you said you would come home to me, and then I was as I should be;," Eliot says, "and God I was wrong then, too, wasn't I?, because you did; and I was, finally, exactly as I should be": to Quentin, sitting cross-legged facing him on the bed Eliot'd bought even when sharing it with him felt like—a dream, or a particularly unrealistic fantasy; and Eliot asks him, "Who knows what I shall be in the spring?"

Quentin takes a breath, and then turns, reaching out to grab another Kleenex. 

Eliot swallows. Nods, laughing a little, as he takes it; those Kleenex haven't got this much as-intended use since that week and a half in August when something had been blooming that Eliot had turned out to be violently allergic to. Hunched over, throat aching, he smoothes the letter out. Refinds his place.

"I keep finding my set point all over again, with you," he explains; and then—swallows. "Beth," he says. Stops. Breathes in "Beth just looks at me with that scrunched-up analytic expression of hers," he explains, "and tells me she thinks that's probably what being in love _means_, but—but she never sounds very sure of herself, does she.."

And knee to knee with him on their bedspread, Quentin leans forward, until his mouth touches the edge of Eliot's bent forehead.

Eliot swallows.

"Darling," he reads; and then, "—damn it. I wish I were a poet, you know, or capable of even half your cleverness with a pen. When I write "darling," even, I feel—": breathing in, recentering: "—as though I'm donning another man's hat and shoes, stealing his coat; or borrowing his mustache so I can get away with kissing his wife—oh, which reminds me, _have_ you decided on growing a mustache?" which makes Quentin huff; even before Eliot reads, " I find that I am _terribly_ _interested_—": and Quentin starts to laugh. _The thing is_, Eliot is remembering: "the thing is," he reads, "_Walter_, _darling_—another awkward fucking fumbling pause, to turn the page, re-settle the second letter over the first thinking _Walter, darling_—_Walter, darling_— "The thing is, _Walter_, _darling_": the end of one page repeated from memory; "that all the words I w-want to say to you fit so clumsily in my mouth": and the clumsy, stuttering start of the next. "Hank's got a fiancée back home in Manhattan; I suppose he thinks nothing of it, when he writes to her and calls her "darling"; and "sweetheart," too, and—oh, I don't know, what _do_ politely wealthy young men Of A Certain Class write to the terrifyingly well-brought up young ladies they intend to marry?" Eliot asks; as Quentin sighs. Resting his hand on Eliot's wrist. "Beth won't tell me," Eliot says. Rough: imagining—that blonde, with Quentin's dimples, getting—impatient, probably: "Whenever I ask her advice about what to put in my letters to you, she always gets tremendously reasonable": the sort of girl who'd be—_bored_, wouldn't she? "and reminds me that she's never gotten a love letter and she'd burn it anyway if she did": _crushingly_ bored, just—totally over the scandalously sodomitical love affair blossoming between her two closest friends: "so how is _she_ to know what I should write?": because why _would_ Matthew insist on wasting her _time_ with that, when she had so much to _do_? "I can't ask my brothers, can I": and Eliot dashes the back of his hand over his eyes; Quentin already turning back, ready with another Kleenex. Eliot swallows. "I imagine _you'd_ know, but—well, that rather presumes that you'll forgive me not knowing in the first place." Takes a breath: shaky. "We're—we're a rougher sort, you know," he reads. "Before my father moved us to Washington Park, I suspect a Coldwater would've used grunts exclusively, to communicate with his beloved": and then.

Stops. Breathing in, deep; half-afraid, for some reason, to look up—

—but just for an instant.

Quentin swallows: looking back. Those huge, hurt-wide dark eyes. 

"Is that the end?" he asks, rough; and Eliot takes a breath.

"No," he says. "I mean—almost, it's just—uh." He smooths it out. Because— "I think I've let the point run away without me again," Matthew had written: "which is—I continue to love you most desperately, and miss you more or less in proportion to my interest in the aforementioned mustache." Quentin laughs, a little, scratchy; "I await any and all news most desperately," as Eliot finishes: "Grunt, grunt—"

"Yours, always,  
Matthew." 

Eliot looks up at Quentin. At—his lovely pink face, those tempered-chocolate eyes: Eliot swallows. "I, uh." Huffs, looking back down at—he rubs his thumb over the shaky trace of his pen, feeling— "I probably should've just—used the spell," he admits, thick; because—it probably isn't at all—actually romantic, is it, to have your boyfriend—stumbling over your great-great-grandfather's handwriting—

And Quentin puts his hand over Eliot's.

"I'm glad you read it to me," he says, very rough; and then ducks his head, whispering, "It—hurt less"; and Eliot. 

Swallows, against the hot, tense surge in his chest.

He turns his palm up. Interlaces their fingers.

"Will you read the other one?" Eliot asks. "Or. Or should I—"

Swallowing, around the scratchy-hot scrape in his throat.

"I think—I don't think it should hurt at all, baby," he says, very quietly; and holds out the letter.

Quentin takes a long, slow breath, then takes it from him; and Eliot rests—his hollow, prickling hands, on Quentin's warm knees.

"June 9," Quentin reads, voice thick; and then pauses, for just a moment, before he reads, "—1923."

He looks up; and Eliot nods, silent, so Quentin looks back down at the page.

"Dear Beth," he reads.

He stops, again; and Eliot squeezes Quentin's knees through his jeans.

"I was glad of your cable, yesterday," Quentin reads, a little unsteady. "We'd started to wonder if you might not just—_stay_, you know, and while I don't imagine we have very many illusions about the relative appeal of—"

He stops, again; and Eliot swallows.

"You don't have to read it aloud if you don't want to," Eliot says, very quietly; and Quentin flushes a deep, rosy pink.

"About the relative appeal," he says, very quietly, "of our little house in Brooklyn, and London's bright lights": and then takes a breath. "—well!" Even reads it with the weight of Matthew's exclamation point; because Quentin, of course, never thinks of himself as a performer; but he also hasn't spent the past two years falling in love over and over while listening to himself read. "We've been working on the window-boxes, at least," Quentin says, with Matthew's voice, "so your desk will look out on something a bit more nourishing to the creative mind than the streetcar—we do what we can, I suppose. More, if you ask it of us; and probably—draw us the plans for it, d-darling."

He pauses, again. Lashes trembling, not—not quite looking up: Eliot rubs his thumbs over Quentin's warm knees.

Waiting.

"We're not exactly—the _type_, are we?" Quentin reads. Scratchy. "For glamorous publishing parties, and that glittering city life—and I can see you, you know, frowning over this page: thinking, _Why, Matthew, as though you weren't in **Paris**, four years ago_—but Paris was hardly at its best, in 1919; and besides, I'm becoming quite the homebody, you know. Geraniums! That's what Walter says they are. In your window-boxes, I mean. I had suggested—"

He stops. Looking up; and Eliot meets his eyes.

"I had suggested pansies," Quentin says, quiet, "but Walter declined this contribution, for what he assures me were _any number_ of excellent horticultural reasons": which—yes. Eliot can just imagine.

Can't he.

Quentin looks back down at the letter.

"He's diverting Ralph, at the moment, which is why you're sentenced to puzzling over my penmanship, I'm afraid: I'm feeling slightly fragile, this evening." Quentin pauses. Takes a breath. "This morning, Albert—" the oldest, Eliot remembers: cars, profligate spender, general useless bastard, probably gay, according to Quentin, quoting Adam— "came over to try to cajole us out to a party at that atrocity he's bought out on Long Island: while he described what he had planned, Walter listened quite tolerantly—that wide-eyed, politely interested lie of an expression of his; you know the one—" which—yes, Eliot suspects that he does— "but I, at least, was exhausted by the time Albert got to the end of the menu. How _I_ could possibly be related to _him_, I will never know: he's just come from racing his yacht somewhere or other, and he brought us an entire _case_ of champagne (I really think he takes the 18th amendment as, at best, a sort of loose suggestion)—" Quentin laughing a little— "though that I at least persuaded him to take away with him again—or, most of it, anyway—" a pause, to turn the page: "—along with a deeply hideous chinoiserie lamp he claims to have won from Neil Vanderbilt in a poker game, though neither of us really believed him; a toy car for Ralphie, which makes a sort of horrible grinding noise when it rolls on the ground that a less intelligent child _might_, _perhaps_, take for an engine; and some more jewelry for you—I think Albert's a bit at loose ends, you know, since that crowd he runs around with probably keeps standing weekly appointments at Tiffany's to have sufficient apologies on hand for whichever girls they've offended this week; and the sorts my brother tends towards aren't—"

Quentin hesitates again, a little; Eliot squeezes.

"—aren't precisely the sort likely to appreciate _that_ kind of gift, are they?" Quentin says, very quietly; as Eliot tucks his thumbs in behind the creases of Quentin's warm knees.

"Well," Matthew had written: Quentin clears his throat. "The long and short of it is that our plans for the day hadn't really been designed to accommodate my brother turning up, almost certainly still drunk, at nine in the morning, and then staying through until after lunch, and the entire enterprise was exhausting. I'll sell the necklace for you, you know, if you like." Quentin has to pause, there, too. For a while. "Once Albert had finally oozed back off to Manhattan," he says, finally, "Walter took Ralph out to Coney Island for something approximating fresh air, and I spent the afternoon in a swoon. Well, in my workshop, but it's much the same thing, isn't it?" Breathing in: Eliot wants—to hold him up, to make it—_easy_ for him, except— "Whenever Albert comes by," Quentin reads, from his great-great-grandfather's chicken-scratch scrawl, "he always looks at us with that fascinated anthropological eye, as though he is some sort of intrepid explorer just discovering a new and fantastically isolated civilization; while I primarily find myself in great sympathy with all those isolated civilizations with the excellent taste to eat the explorers stumbling upon them."

Quentin's quiet, for a moment, looking down at the page. Eliot almost—almost doesn't want him to read the next part. But—

"It's the peculiarity, isn't it," Quentin reads, voice low, "of having lost so many people?": his head—tilting, that little cluster of sharp-hurt-tense lines at the corner of his eyes. "I'm not entirely certain that Albert could've even told T-Thomas and me apart, before George and Henry—but it's not as though I don't know why he keeps coming around now, is it?" 

Quentin stops, again. His mouth— 

"His jealousy," Quentin says, "over Ralph": and then rubs at his mouth. "You too, really," he says, unsteady, "the whole thing. All of it, in the end. If he were more—oh, like Freddy, perhaps: that relentlessly scientific mind—that sort of Albert would probably try to sit down and make notes. Take measurements, perhaps, of our little life: try to develop a sort of schematic, for the operational mechanism of—oh, _you_ know: do-it-yourself plans—": he turns the page; reading, "—at the back of—": and then—

—stops. His eyes—skipping, quick, down the page.

After a moment, he looks up at Eliot, who swallows.

_Trust me_, he is thinking, over and over: _trust me, just_ trust _me, Q—_please—

"At the back of a particularly forward-thinking issue of _Popular Mechanics_": a slow, deep flush creeping up Quentin's cheeks as he reads, "'Just Measure And Cut For The Modern Queen, Her Husband, And Their Thoroughly Independent Wife!'"

His eyelashes. 

Trembling, a little, the way they always do, when he's reading something—that hits him. The way that'd hit—Eliot, at least.

"The chickens, in particular, I know Albert finds simply _fascinating_," Quentin adds, rough. "He was asking questions about their feed: as though he might be able to purchase a coop and tuck it in an out-of-the-way corner of his—third best ballroom, or what have you, and the rest of it would come along with it; as though—that boy he kept during the war, and treated like a pet poodle, instead of a person: ah, yes, surely, Albert, what was missing between you was _the requisite number of chickens_."

Quentin stops, there, again. His throat working, as he screws himself up to read the rest of it: "It shouldn't make me angry, I know that." Low. "But it does: because the fact of the matter is—it's already all gone into Ralph's clock, you know, however—however angry you might be with me": another long, scraped-raw pause. "That wallpaper you half-flogged Walter and me into rehanging," Quentin reads; "and that creaking step four up in the stair; the bedrooms, and the kitchen, and your desk, with the typewriter and your window-boxes hung out to block out the streetcar—but for all I can build the skeleton of the thing in wood and metal, measure every—every wayfinding sigil to the hairsbreadth; carve out—our home": a hurt, caught sound; "—to W-Walter's design and paint it (chickens and all) with the colors you mix for me—the." Swallowing. "The form of the thing still isn't the magic of it, is it?" Quentin croaks. "The heart of it, that thrumming little golden s-spark: what. What Albert can't see, or won't: all these things we—" Swallowing. "These things we shape to fit each other, make fit to purpose, set aside for—for our s-son." His shoulders. Hunching— "To carry forward with him—I told you it was the best thing I've made, but _you_ know I wasn't talking about the clock—" swallowing, before he can manage: "don't you, Bethie?"

And Eliot kneels up, reaching over him for the box of Kleenex, as Quentin laughs, raw, wiping shaking fingers at his face.

"You're such an asshole," he says, thick, as Eliot sits back down in front of him; but he lets Eliot tip his chin up. Mop at his cheeks, his chin.

"I know," Eliot agrees; and Quentin laughs. Shaking his head.

Again.

"Not—a family friend, then," Quentin says; and Eliot swallows. 

"No," he says, quiet; and Quentin starts—_laughing_, that awful, hurt-deep sound; and Eliot pulls out another Kleenex, but Quentin just—kneels up. Crawling—over, _closer_, towards him 'til they're touching and then _towards_ him closer, still: until any move that Eliot makes just—rubs their faces together. Their chests: Eliot's feet fitting in under his own thighs without—needing to ask the rest of him: the automatic—_making room_, he thinks, around that hot-sharp echoing pang: to make the space that—that they both like best, where Quentin can sit up in Eliot's lap so he can curve himself towards Eliot curving towards him: for the touching hot pin-point anchoring press of their foreheads. Noses. Mouths: as Eliot slides his arms around Quentin's warm ribs.

"Beth didn't fucking—cheat on him," Quentin says, voice cracking, "she wasn't—"

He stops. Breathing ragged; hard. 

"No," Eliot says, very quietly; and then—touches his cheek. "They were a family," Eliot says; and then—swallows. "_You're_ their family": rough; "I mean, _fuck_ genetics, there's a _reason_ you're _just fucking like him_, Quentin": as Quentin makes another caught painful sound; and then starts to laugh.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/they_were_a_family)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/they_were_a_family)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/they_were_a_family)

[They were a family.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/they_were_a_family)

"I can't fucking—_believe_ you, sometimes," he says; and then, "Will you—just fucking _kiss_ me—": so Eliot—

"Was it—okay?" Eliot asks, after—between: Quentin making another tiny, hot little noise as he licks over the hinge of Eliot's jaw: "to ask you to—read it, I mean," Eliot asks; and Quentin lifts up his head.

Eyes dark. So—fucking _open_ all the time—

"I wasn't—I didn't know what to _say_," Eliot explains. Heartsore: "I mean, not—not how to say—the part of it that _matters_, I just, I wanted—"

"You wanted me to believe it," Quentin whispers, squeezing Eliot's shoulders tight. His hand—

"I wanted you to _know_ it," Eliot corrects; as Quentin nods. 

Squeezing. The back of his neck.

"Yeah," Quentin whispers; and then, "I—yes. It was—just right": his voice unsteady; and then Quentin presses their foreheads together and says, "You always—it's just like—your bookshelves, isn't it? That you made—_made fit to purpose_": and Eliot feels the flush burning out and up through his skin even before Quentin whispers, "It was perfect," and then— "You're always—so fucking good to me, sweetheart"; and _Christ_, Eliot thinks, how could they've ever've thought that Ralph _wasn't_ Matthew Coldwater's son?

He presses their foreheads together. Kisses—Quentin's warm cheek: a little scratchy, because—because, inevitably: he didn't shave. "There's one more sheet," Eliot reminds him, thick, against the corner of Quentin's warm mouth; and rough Quentin says, "Was that—_not_ the part you wanted me to read?"; and Eliot. Laughs.

Nods.

"The ending's pretty good, though, too," he says; and so Quentin shifts—mm—in Eliot's lap, and picks it up again: his left arm still draped around Eliot's shoulders: "You don't have to stop kissing me, you know," he says; so Eliot kisses him. His hot cheek, rubbing a thumb against the edge of his lovely soft throat, as "Oh, well," Quentin reads: "I ought to've closed this letter a page and half ago. All this while Walter's been sitting up with Ralph on the sofa, reading us stories": as Eliot nuzzles up under his ear; "and I haven't had the heart to tell him that the kid's been asleep for an hour. It's past ten, anyway: you know I always talk nonsense between a quarter to ten and three or four or eleven hours past midnight." Quentin huffs: a little wry sliver of a laugh. "I am sorry, you know," he says, "please come back, so I can convince you to forgive me.

"We all love you and miss you and remain—

"Yours, as always": Quentin breathing in, deep; before he finishes, "Matthew."

Quentin doesn't—fold it up right away. Just—looking at it; at—at the sketch, Eliot knows: at the little pencil drawing that'd been added, some time after: two pale-tufted heads curled towards each other, asleep with a book between them, on a little bed: the man's feet, in dark socks, hanging off the end of the bed; the little boy tucked carefully up under a quilt, and not-quite-sucking his thumb. Written underneath it: _Our boys_: in an entirely different hand. 

"His letters," Quentin says, quiet. Rubbing his thumb across it: Eliot kisses his temple. "I should've—I didn't think about it."

"About what?" Eliot asks.

"About why I had—we have all these letters that people wrote to Beth, or letters people wrote to Matthew," Quentin says; and then—sighs. "Not—Walter's, Matthew must've—hidden them, with—with magic, probably, if they were—_uh_, but—but we also have." A deep, slow breath: "All those letters," Quentin says, "that people wrote to Walter, too."

Eliot swallows. He hadn't really—thought about it, either. 

Except. 

"An inheritance," he says, very quietly. 

"Yeah," Quentin murmurs, "Something like that": and then he folds the letter back up into thirds, and twists: leaning over to tuck it into the windowsill.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/beth_and_walter)

[An inheritance. ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/beth_and_walter)

Eliot keeps a hand, steadying, on his side, his ribs; and then—helps him, when Quentin leans back in. Looping his arms back around Eliot's shoulders: "I really love you a lot," Quentin says, very rough. "You know that, right?"

Eliot swallows. "Yeah," he says, "I do."

Quentin nods.

Ducks down. Kisses him, once, and then—again; and Eliot—

Opens.

Like—like his ribs, he thinks: cavernous. His mouth like—like all the hollowed-out rearranged spaces in him, like—_like your bookshelves_, Quentin had told him, _like—_: and Eliot—can't—his hands tightening up over and over in—in Quentin's hair, and the back of his shirt; squeezing—the crest of his shoulder, while Quentin whimpers; and the warm-tacky back of his neck—

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/ribcage)

[Like—like his ribs, he thinks: cavernous. His mouth like—like all the hollowed-out rearranged spaces in him, like—_like your bookshelves_, Quentin had told him, _like—_](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/ribcage)

And they both jump, then; at a knock on the door: "I'm going for a walk, boys," Rachel calls, and Quentin's face floods bubblegum pink: "A _long_ walk," she adds; and Eliot considers, briefly, whether or not it'd be worth it to just—sink through the floor, set the fucking building on fire, but he finally manages to call back, "Okay, have a nice walk!"; while Quentin hunches down to press his burning forehead against Eliot's shoulder. 

They weren't, Eliot notes, actually doing anything particularly scandalous; but they still hold—very, very still; listening to her thunking around in the closet, putting her boots on, her—coat, probably, Eliot can't tell, except then—then the door closes with something only-just shy of a slam: thoughtful of her, Eliot thinks, with the 0.05% of him that isn't simultaneously dying of embarrassment; and then Quentin lifts his face up. 

"Well," he says: still so, so red. "That was—uh." Not _quite_ looking at him.

Eliot shifts. "It could've been worse?" he tries.

"Oh, you mean, like, _Monday_," Quentin sighs; and then scrapes his hair back. "To be fair, uh—I'm pretty sure if she'd waited, like, 2 minutes, it was going to _be_ worse, so, uh—"

"Thanks, Mom," Eliot says; and Quentin meets his eyes—

—and it happens so fast that Eliot barely even can identify the feeling before they're clutching at each other, laughing so hard that tears are streaming down Quentin's cheeks: "Ohmigod," Quentin gasps, "oh Jesus, _Eliot_, I can't believe—your _mom_, _Eliot_—"

"At least this time you weren't wearing the bathrobe," Eliot points out; and Quentin says, "Shut the fuck up, oh my God, you are _such a dick_": laughing through all of it, the end pressed right into Eliot's mouth.

And.

The thing is.

"Um—" Eliot pulls back, barely. "So—I know that that was—like, the world's biggest boner killer, or—whatever—": but Quentin just drags Eliot's hand to his fly, which is— "Right": Eliot nods, fumbling with— "Could you—" so Quentin kneels up just a little, sliding his weight back to, give them both just enough room to—get their fucking pants open, and then—Christ his hands: Eliot licks Quentin's throat; and then grabs the shoulder seams of his t-shirt.

"I'm starting—" says Quentin, between kisses: "to really—feel like—a total, mm, _freak_—yeah, could you—_Jesus_": breathing in, deep, as Eliot slides a hand down the back of his jeans.

"Mm—but you're _my_ freak": Eliot says, tender; and Quentin's breath catches.

"I—_fuck_": he gasps, shivering, as Eliot rubs at him; "I'm—telling Margo you said that"; to which— "Brat," Eliot tells him, and Quentin knots his hands up in Eliot's hair, breathing: "so _shut me up_"; so Eliot.

Tips them over. Wriggling his pants down, so he can—press his whole burning bare body against Quentin's; tangling their legs together, sliding—his hand, cupping, around Quentin's hand on their cocks and—kissing, _kissing_ him— 

"Why d'you feel like a freak?" Eliot asks: rubbing—Christ his skin; while Quentin pants into his mouth.

"Lube?" Quentin asks, thick; so Eliot—stretches out, somehow: blinking sweat out of his eyes while Quentin whines, high, without letting go of either of them. "Because—we keep getting off on. On all this—weird-as-fuck—family shit—": breathing in, shaky, while Eliot gets their hands wet.

"I thought everyone was into—uh." Eliot swallows, blinking. Barely able to—to think about—

"World War I-era grandpa love letters?" Quentin asks, breathless; and Eliot points out, "About the joys of parenting a five-year-old"; to which Quentin offers, "Yeah, and—like, mm—early twentieth century urban farming"; and Eliot says, "I mean—I am. _Really_ into chickens": and Quentin starts laughing. Pressing—_up_: Eliot leaves their dicks to Quentin's expert attention to slide both hands under him. Lifting him, a little, pulling his asscheeks apart; Quentin, shuddering, groans.

"Jesus—can you," Quentin gasps; and then. Bites his lip: God, he's like—porn, only _better_: blotchy-flushed bright-eyed, with—with his hole just. Just _right fucking there_: "C'mere," Eliot says, thick; because—because no, he _can't_, there's—no way he can—get Quentin open enough before he blows but—but he can just. Just. Just _fit_, just _against him_, can't he: and Quentin moans: clutching at his own dick with‚ with his knees held up around Eliot's sides while Eliot—rubs his cock in against—against the sweat-damp crack of his ass, wanting—

"I like it," Eliot says, thick; "I like—all of it, I like—the fucking _picture_, you know? With—": pressing. God. _God_. 

"The kid," Quentin agrees; because—Jesus, he's so fucking into babies, he's going to be—amazing with them, Eliot's probably—going to _explode_, or something—:

"The kid," Eliot agrees; and then—wrestles one of Quentin's hands up: fingers interlacing pressing down while under him, Quentin—_groans_— "And—and the, the house," Eliot manages, "with—with the windowboxes and—and shit": because Eliot is. Maybe—losing focus a little, but—

"Why," Quentin groans, riding—_back_: "are we still talking about my great-grandpa?"

"Your great-great-grandpa," Eliot corrects; and Quentin actually _lets go of his cock_ for the sole purpose of grabbing a pillow to _thunk_ him; which Eliot—_loves_, like he loves—the skin on Quentin's shoulders and his flushed hot face and—and how _easy_ he is for it—squirming and panting with—with that wide-open wet mouth—

"It's—so fucking—_gross_," Quentin manages; and then—starts laughing, high and frantic: _you're never gross_, Eliot is thinking, but—that's not true, is it, so— "Yeah," he breathes, and then—cups Quentin's throat, thumbing his chin up so that Quentin whines out long hot frantic and then gasps: "_Windowboxes_—"; but Eliot—Eliot knows he means—

"A family," Eliot whispers, and Quentin—shudders all over, moans: "You gonna be gross with me?" Eliot asks; and Quentin—whines; clawing at his back, nodding and frantic; and Eliot—kisses him, licks—overandoverandover into his gasping warm mouth— "you gonna—let me, nhh—"

"I'm gonna let you—do everything," Quentin tells him; and then, "M'gonna let you—c-cook for me, oh—yeah, just—there": panting, arching up like a bow: "M'gonna let you," Quentin pants, with Eliot—nodding and nodding: "scratch my back, _fuck_—unpack—my fucking _books_—": and oh, _Christ_: Eliot thinks heart pounding: Jesus, that is. Some incredibly dirty fucking pool, when Eliot's already—

"I want to alphabetize them," Eliot whispers, and Quentin starts laughing; "By _author_, I want to—" Eliot gasps, shifting him—up: "I want to—Jesus, I want to come all over you": panted out right into Quentin's warm mouth; and then Quentin whimpers, gasps— "Yeah, c'mon, I—_do_ it, El—mess me up—"

So Eliot—pins him down, rubs—against him over and over and over until, until he can't fucking—_stand_ it anymore: groaning, helpless, as he comes toes cramping all along the crack of Quentin's ass: "Give me—a little, oh, Jesus, oh fucking God," Quentin moans, while Eliot gets a hand under him, rubbing his fingers up against his come-sticky hole: pressing, uncoordinated, but—just enough, he knows, to push Quentin over the edge.

Eliot presses his mouth down. Panting: tasting—salt, all along Quentin's collarbone; his heart is going like a freight train. Quentin's hands are heavy: trembling, very slightly, against Eliot's skull and back.

"Fuck," Quentin says, low and rough; and then, "—Jesus, I needed that"; and Eliot nods, nods: lifting his head up, just enough to kiss him: that sort of—vague, uncoordinated sharing-of-air press of mouth and teeth and tongue that Eliot loves—more than anything, he thinks; except for all the other parts of it that he loves—very very best.

Quentin takes a breath. Another: deep, trying to—steady himself out— "I'm—pretty sure that's not how you get a baby, though," he says, finally: the kind of thing that probably—_should_ be a joke, except—

Eliot props himself up on an elbow. Their bellies sticking together, wet with lube and come and sweat: he looks down at Quentin's face. His dark eyes: Eliot touches the corner of one, pinched. Fingers gentle.

"I don't know," Eliot says, quiet. "Maybe we just need to try harder?"

Quentin huffs. Shakes his head. Looking—

—away.

Eliot bends down. Kisses—his cheek, the—painful downturned corner of his lovely familiar warm mouth.

"Do you want to have kids?" Quentin asks; and Eliot lets out a breath. Pulling back, just enough, to settle down on his side.

"Didn't we already have this big difficult relationship conversation?" Eliot reaches over. "Like, ten months ago? And again like eight months ago?" Tugging Quentin up to face him: Quentin goes, easy. Tucking his face down against Eliot's throat: "And again," Eliot reminds him, "like—a month after that?"; and Quentin sighs, slow, and wraps an arm around Eliot's waist.

"I meant—do you want them to be _your_ kids," Quentin asks, "because—personally I could do without them getting, you know—the height that tops out just shy of 5'8" and the crippling grab-bag of mental illnesses—"

"Okay—um." Eliot laughs: squeezing him. Throat sore. "Maybe we could—save that?" he says, as gently as he can. "Like just—postpone our worrying about the genetic crapshoot until, like. Fifteen, twenty minutes into the afterglow?" Rubbing, round and round, at the warm hunched curve of Quentin's back; as Quentin takes a very, very deep breath, and then lets it out.

"I—don't know if I can," he admits; and then pulls back, a little. Just—_looking_ at Eliot, with—with that taut, hurt expression; and Eliot takes a breath.

"Look," he says, quiet. "My family comes with—congenital heart defects and a family history of alcoholism, and—": breathing in; "apparently—breast cancer, too, so—so I don't know that I'm exactly a safe bet either, baby, but—but I don't care _whose_ kids genetics thinks they are," Eliot says, rough, "as long as _we_ know they're _ours_. Okay?"

And Quentin's mouth twists, his eyes—welling up, but—but his shoulders are relaxing, his body going—heavy and pliable again: pressing his face back down against Eliot's collar, and takes a long, damp series, of slow, shaky breaths. Nodding, as he squeezes Eliot tight around the waist.

Eliot rubs his back. Over, and over, and over again: throat aching, because—Quentin always just—feels _everything_, doesn't he? _So fucking much_: and Eliot—spends so fucking much of the time wishing—that he could just _take_ some of it, give Quentin—a fucking _break_—but he can't, can he? Kissing Quentin's sweaty hairline, when Quentin makes a rough, animal sound: Eliot can't—save him, can he? From any of it.

He can only—do this.

With him.

He squeezes Quentin, tight; and rubs his back.

"Thanks," Quentin says, quiet; after a while.

"You can cry on me any time," Eliot says; and Quentin—laughs. A little wet; but it's a laugh, at least.

Tipping his face up. Red-eyed, blinking: "I think—I think you should talk to your mom, El," Quentin says, "like—for real, I mean, like—like actually _talk_ to her, Eliot"; and then—his gaze slides, just a little bit, to the side. Flushing, a very little: oh. So—that's code, then, isn't it? It's—code, in Quentin, probably for—_Because_ I _talked to your mom, probably while you were at work, and—_

And you should talk to your mom, Eliot.

Eliot swallows.

"I mean—" Quentin shifts, a little. "She's here, isn't she?" he asks. "Like, fuck her giving birth to you, or whatever, like—we both _know_ it didn't make my mom a mom, but Rachel—she's here, _now_, she's _choosing_ to be here—okay, well, maybe she's not like—choosing to be trapped in Chicago by a blizzard, but—she chose to come to your door, didn't she? She showed up because she wants—": he stops. Sighs, and then says, "Because she wants to _fix_ things, you know?"

"Yeah," Eliot says, quiet. "I know."

Quentin nods. "She wants to be in your life," he says, quiet. "She wants _you_ in _hers_, and—and it seems like—if _choice_," he says, unsteady, "has—has a place in—in any part of it": blinking, again; Eliot cranes his head up, twisting for—well, Quentin's t-shirt, because the Kleenex must've—fallen off the bed— "In being a family, I mean," Quentin says, rough; twining his fingers up in the hair at Eliot's nape, while Eliot mops off his face: Eliot nods. "Then—then that should _count_ for something, shouldn't it?" Quentin asks. Voice—pulled. Unsteady. "That she—_chose_ to be here, that she chose to, to _try_—"

"Yeah," Eliot says, very quietly. Petting Quentin's hair back. Eliot says, "I'll talk to my mom."

"Yeah?" Quentin asks: blinking big wet brown eyes. Spilling over, again: Eliot wipes at his cheeks.

"Yeah," Eliot says. "It counts. I'll talk to her. It counts—the most": and Quentin lets out a long, slow sigh. 

His shoulders—slumping: Christ, he looks exhausted; Eliot's throat hurts. He pets Quentin's cheek. 

"Do you mind if I wait until the morning?" Eliot asks; and Quentin—blinks up at him. Looking— "I promise," Eliot says, "I _promise_ that I will talk to her, I just—"

He sighs.

"She—made pie," he explains; and then laughs, a little, at Quentin's expression. Leans down to kiss his cheek. "Just give us—another twelve hours, or something, okay?" Eliot asks. "To—cook for each other, like—because. Because it's an apology, you know?"

"God," Quentin mumbles; and then—sighs. "You always _call_ me a New England WASP, but—at least I don't fucking. Sublimate my emotions into baking, or whatever."

"No," Eliot says, very gently. "You and your dad definitely never had long, in-depth conversations about painting miniatures, instead of talking about your feelings"; and Quentin barks a laugh; and then.

Nods.

Sighs.

Eliot ducks in. Kisses his cheek. "You want to clean up, and then help me make apology dinner?" he asks; and Quentin huffs again, but he nods. 

"What're we making?" Quentin asks, as Eliot slides off the bed—Jesus, they're going to have to clean that up with magic, aren't they. 

"Um—I'm saving the pasta stuff, you know that's Margo's favorite, but we can do... meatloaf, I think?" Eliot says, "If—I _think_ I have another onion": while simultaneously trying to remember if he's got any rye in his freezer; and Quentin just—blinks at him.

"I'm sorry, I could've _sworn_ you just said you were going to make a meatloaf," Quentin says; and Eliot laughs.

"It's good, I promise," Eliot says, "if someone's taught you how to make it correctly": and then he sticks his head out, scanning for Surprise Mom—nope, all clear—before he tugs Quentin out and around into the bathroom: warm and naked and pliable, holding his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Paris was hardly at its best, in 1919" - in the manner of all mutually-interweaving creative partnerships, I'm more or less required to reference **breathedout**'s work at least three times per story; in that vein, this line was borrowed—with permission—from _[A hundred hours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1543718)_.


	9. stitch.

### 9\. stitch.

#### Sunday, December 31, 2017

At the O'Hare baggage claim, Margo shows up in her embroidered trousers and jacket carrying a Prada weekender she's not even trying to pretend isn't enchanted, takes one look at Eliot, and then rests her hand on his chest, fingers splayed. It's not a spell, not in any traditional sense of the word; just Margo, looking up at him with her sharp, sharp eyes.

"You have news for me?" she asks; and he shakes his head.

"My mom's still here," he admits, "one more night"; then takes a breath. "I told her you were sleeping in with me and Quentin."

Margo's eyebrows jump. "Wow," she says, impressed. "And—if she didn't like it, she could stuff it?"

Eliot swallows, and reaches out for her bag: but she slaps his hand away. "Not. Exactly"; he says; and then.

Laughs.

In the odd, lopsided silence after, Eliot clears his throat. "She, um. She did ask if you'd need her shelf space in the bathroom, though."

Margo snorts. "Honey, I've seen pictures of that bathroom," she says. "I think I'm going to need your _desk_."

Eliot had suspected as much, so he and Quentin had started the morning by dragging one of the nightstands over to swap with the tiny narrow console table by the mirror: a setup which, upon his description, Margo proclaims acceptable: "But barely," she says. "And I only tolerate it because I know—"

"Lyft or train?" Eliot asks; and she gives him a Look™, but lets him get away with it.

"Lyft," she says. "And—you'd better let the liaison office pay, okay?"

Which. Okay, fine.

It's still fucking freezing, and the traffic's awful, but those little hints of sky peeking through the breaks in the clouds is so honeyish and welcome that Eliot barely even cares about their slow, meandering crawl down I-90. Margo is there, next to him in the back seat: familiar and little, determined to be mad about everything: a banker hit on her on the plane, and her relish over his inevitable destruction would get Eliot through a lot more than a traffic jam. 

"—and _then_," she says, eyes huge, "he _actually tried_ for the whole one-finger thing, on a _plane_—"

"The one-finger thing?"

"Yeah, you know." She makes an incomprehensible gesture. "The one-finger thing—oh, God, I'm so glad you don't know what this is," she sighs, shoulders settling back. "That means I can totally horrify you, so—it goes like this, okay? You're a girl—"

Eliot flips his hair back. "Mm hm."

"No, cuter, _cuter_, you're a _cute_ girl—": so Eliot bats his eyelashes. "Cheesy," Margo notes, "but you're so off the market I'm assuming I should probably just take it—anyway, so you're over on the other side of the room, being a cute girl—" Eliot tosses his hair; bats his eyelashes— "and I'm a douchebag dudebro, over here—" Margo cups her crotch, and Margospreads— "and I go like this": she crooks her finger, a little _come-here_ wriggle; and Eliot raises his eyebrows. "Oh—ah," Margo says. "I should've said—you're like—a moron, so... think like—Quentin as a girl, or something."

All right. Quentin, only a girl: Eliot bats his eyelashes, flips his hair, and then folds his hands over his sternum, looking at Margo, eyes wide with surprise: _Who, me?_

"Wow," she says, "that's. Frighteningly good, actually." 

"Hey, I do have an acting BFA, remember?"

"Yeah, and a _great_ model." Margo pauses. "I'm really tempted to tell him about this," she says, lip curling a little, at the corner.

"Oh come on," Eliot protests, "you _told_ me to—besides, it's possible that he, uh." He shifts, a little, then admits, "Plays that one up, a little, for me"; and her hint of a smile turns into a full-blown grin.

"Okay, I'll spare you, then, just this once, since you're so in touch with your _extremely_ ridiculous base desires, and also—well, nailing it." She shifts towards him on the seat. "So—that's the lead-up, right? I do the—" come-here wriggle— "you do the—" hair flip, batting eyelashes, _who, me?_— "and then, because you're a moron—"

"I actually come over," Eliot guesses; and Margo points right at him.

"You," she says, "actually come over."

"And you say..."

"I got you to come here with just one finger," Margo leers, "want to go home and see what I can do with my whole fist?"

And Eliot.

Stops.

After a second, she drops the leer, and cracks her neck.

"Oh," Eliot manages, "my God?"

"I know, right?" Margo digs her waterbottle out of her bag and takes a long swig. "And—remember, we were on a _plane_. He _didn't_ get me to come there—that was, fucking. Delta assigned seating."

"Did you stab him to death with your shoes?" Eliot asks, still feeling—a little stunned, honestly.

"That would've been a waste of a perfectly good pair of heels," Margo says, but she does sound a little bit disappointed. 

"Honestly, the judge probably would've just ordered his estate to replace them," he says, tucking an arm around her shoulders. "No jury on earth would convict."

"No sane jury, anyway," she agrees, snuggling in.

He presses his face to her hair. She smells like Oribe blowout cream and espresso—so good, warm and sharp and bittersweet: still just the same as always. 

"I'm really glad you're here, Bambi," he says, quiet; and she tucks her hand around the inside of his knee.

"Of course you are," she says, squeezing. "I'm fantastic."

Upstairs, Quentin has opened all the windows: never mind that it means the temperature inside the apartment has dropped down to something around fifty-eight degrees. It'll warm up fast, Eliot knows, when they close them up again: the hazard of radiator heating. 

"Fresh air?" Eliot guesses, when Quentin is moving from leaning up to kiss him into leaning down to give Margo a tight, fierce hug. 

"It was stuffy," Quentin agrees, brushing a strand of her hair off his jaw.

"Mm, _you're_ stuffy," Margo says, and then puts her hands on his cheeks, eyeing him critically. "He's been feeding you," she observes, "good"; as Quentin's dimples arrive.

"He's been feeding me," Quentin agrees, "and it's very good": turning up towards Eliot for another kiss; which Margo appears to find satisfactory.

"Mm—I wasn't in much danger of starving you, you know—I wasn't going to _not_ feed him, Bambi," Eliot says, turning towards her; but Margo is already pulling back, trying to take her bag back, which—no, seriously, Margo, stop it. 

"It weighs like _eighty pounds_!" Margo hisses; "I'm _telekinetic_!" Eliot hisses right back, "and—you've _already_ enchanted it! I can _taste_ it! Let me take your fucking bag, like a—_decent fucking host_"; at which point Margo—yields, but also scowls about it, in a way that a much less patient and generous person would probably tell her will give her lines. 

"It's not your job to feed me, you know," Quentin remarks. "_Either_ of you."

"Yeah, but I like doing it," Eliot says; and Quentin's mouth twitches.

"I know," he says, as Eliot turns to haul—only half physically—Margo's bag back into the living room. 

"Is it too cold in here?" Rachel asks, comes over: hesitant, brushing at the front of her (hideous) shirt. "Quentin said—it still smelled like meatloaf, so—"

"Oh believe me, we are both well acquainted with Quentin's smell thing." Eliot sets Margo's bag next to the fake bedroom door, then takes a breath. "Mom, this is our friend Margo," he says, setting a hand on Margo's back, steadying, as Rachel smiles at them: very awkwardly. "Margo, this is my mom, Rachel—and don't call her Ms. Weiner," he says, just to bypass—_all_ of that: "she and Quentin already went through that."

"There wasn't honestly that much risk that I would," Margo says, laughing a little, as she steps forward and pulls Rachel into a hug: Rachel's eyes wide and surprised, over her shoulder. "It's so nice to meet you," Margo is saying, as she pulls back. "I think you're responsible for this jacket, actually—Eliot told me you're the person who taught him how to sew."

"Oh!" Rachel's eyes fly to his, startled. "I—yes," she says, sounding flustered. "I, um—"

"When I was a kid," he reminds her. Thinking: _costumes_—

"You wanted a patch on your backpack," she says, nodding. "I remember": and Eliot—

—blinks.

"I didn't know you made that jacket," Quentin says, looking at it, with interest; "Oh, he didn't," Margo says, holding the edge out, "but he did do all the embroidery." 

She is neglecting, of course, how many bribed-and-bartered spells for automation had gone into making that happen, for Margo's birthday after their first year; but it's true enough that Eliot had used the Basque Contrivance, which does require that the caster actually know how to do the work it performs. Rachel is letting Margo lead her over the work over the pocket: head tilted, gaze thoughtful; and Eliot—keeps trying to focus in on what Margo is saying, about the patterns they'd pulled off of the cover of—but his brain keeps stopping, and grinding, and then backing up, because he just keeps—thinking, and—thinking, and _thinking_—

—that he had completely forgotten that, hadn't he? 

That patch.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/far_out)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/far_out)

[Such a little thing.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/far_out)

"—and since I had the pants already," Margo is explaining, "he pretended to spill wine all over them, and then—"

Because the thing is.

The thing is—Eliot doesn't even remember where he'd got it. The patch itself. But he does remember, he _is remembering_—an odd, prickling sensation: like opening a door he'd thought he'd long-ago nailed tight shut—of trying to suppress what even he could tell would be a massive, catastrophic meltdown, on the second day of school, because everyone else had cool backpacks, but his was just—black, and it didn't have any characters on it: he'd been—seven, probably. Maybe eight, he doesn't—remember, actually, whether it was second or third grade, just—_You can have a cool backpack when you're the person who works for it_, Eliot had been told; and so—

—so his mom had stayed up, hadn't she? 

Sitting with him, in yellow light in the kitchen, while she walked him through sewing it on.

"—so then I didn't have to strangle him after all," Margo says. "For ruining my favorite pair of trousers."

"I forgot about that," Eliot says, to Rachel. "I—Mom," he says, feeling suddenly desperate: "I forgot."

Rachel ducks her head. 

Shrugging, a little. 

Quentin is quiet. Watching him, Eliot realizes, with a tiny, pebble-ish pang, right around the time Quentin straightens up and says, "Oh—but Rachel's from Chicago," looking back at Margo, "so she was telling me about all the things we needed to do, while we're here": his body, Eliot notes, turning; to give Eliot. Some space. Margo is right with Quentin, right away, of course: "Oh! Yes, absolutely, I've never been before"; and Rachel lets them wash her along, turning towards the angle between their bodies, coaxing her towards the kitchen: a feather in their stream. 

"Can you stick my bag in the bedroom?" Margo asks, casual, tossed half over her shoulder; and Eliot takes a breath and nods, even though she's not looking at him, is she.

He goes into the bedroom. He closes the fake door. He sets Margo's bag down underneath the nightstand from his side of the bed, not Quentin's—Eliot always ends up in the middle anyway, doesn't he—and then Eliot rests his hands on the curlicued footboard: breathing in. Margo: unmistakable. The dense, familiar chew of her work. Breathing out: her aftertaste like marmalade. Breathing in the painfully familiar alcohol-sharp sear of her magic, still rising off the spell on her bag to seep into Eliot's mouth and his nose and his floors and walls and _skin_: as he. 

Breathes.

In.

Slow, and steady, and deep.

That patch: he thinks; and closes his eyes.

It had been of a UFO, he remembers. There'd been—lightning bolts, or something; planets; shooting stars, maybe; he doesn't really remember. The patch had also been, overwhelmingly, pink: he does remember that. He had thought, briefly, the UFO made it badass enough that no one would notice. He rubs at his forehead, which aches. _It's beautiful_, Rachel had said to him, touching it very gently; and then she showed him how to tie the ends off, on his seam.

When he comes out again, Margo is perched in a chair at the kitchen table, retelling a (heavily sanitized) version of that story about her college graduation party; but as soon as Eliot comes out again, she looks up: "—but _that_," Margo says, standing, "is a story for another time—El, can I use your shower? I feel like I'm wearing the entire airport."

"Um." He scrubs at his face. "Yeah, of course, let me just—find you a towel": as she follows him into the closet hallway.

He gets down the towel he'd set aside for her, days ago: a cool, silvery grey, soft and fluffy: the newest one he's got. He can still hear Rachel and Quentin talking in the kitchen, without understanding what they're saying.

He closes his eyes.

After a moment, Margo says: "El." Just-touching his elbow; and he swallows. Turning back to her.

Her face.

"Are you having a personal crisis?" Margo asks, after a second. "Because—personal crises are Quentin. Or Penny; Penny does personal crises, I don't do personal crises, do I need to get Quentin?": sounding very annoyed: her usual, inimitable Margo way; except—

—those eyes.

Looking at Margo, for Eliot, has felt for years like looking in a mirror: sharp, and cold, and _difficult_, in all the same ways. The Margo who had knelt with him, wrists bound, during the Trials had been able to see things about himself that he hadn't wanted anyone to see; and so—it had been easy, hadn't it. To assume that—that she saw everything. But—but she didn't, of course. Did she. She saw—_some_ of him; and because she had a perhaps unusual and slightly terrifying level of instinctive access to some of the tenderest and most vulnerable parts of himself, it was easy to believe—that she had that access to all of him. But she didn't. She _doesn't_, Eliot is realizing: with an achy, pulled-muscle bloom of love for her, just at the bottom of his throat; she _doesn't_, and then—then she looks at him, with her huge dark lovely bottomless eyes: wanting—

—more of him, maybe; he thinks.

Eliot wraps his arms around her; and presses his face down to her hair.

"I missed you," Eliot whispers. "I think—I haven't been home, you know? Since we were—_here_": as Margo slips her arms around his waist; and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes.

When they pull apart, her face is—serious. Earnest; uncomfortable: a whole mess of things that Margo hates to be. "And—with. Your mom," she asks; or doesn't ask; or is asking while not asking: that same searching gaze turned up on his face that Eliot is realizing means—

—that she _can't_ see him, but she _wants_ to. If he can light her way.

"It's just," Eliot says. Looking at—at her earrings, which are. Gold; ordinary, almost. "She taught me how to sew," he explains.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/symbols_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/symbols_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/symbols_gifset)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/symbols_gifset)

[—that Eliot is realizing means—](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/symbols_gifset)

It's—such a strange thing, he thinks: such a _little_ thing. It doesn't, of course, actually matter. It had mattered, in fact, so little to him, that it had become something he would completely forget: just—a pebble, a grain of sand, maybe, in the mountain that makes up Eliot: a night where his mother had sat up with him, very late, and taught him, for the first time, a way to make things beautiful, in her little perpetual pool of tremulous golden light. But—

But it does matter. And it isn't small. And he didn't know, did he? So he couldn't see. And—how could he have? How could anyone expect him to? When it happened so long ago, and been a part of him for so long, that it had become—like Quentin's messenger bag, back in their room at Brakebills: constantly listing open, tipping over, dumping pens and flashcards and the cardboard sleeves from weeks-ago coffee cups all over the floor at the base of the desk (their desk) in a way that _drove Eliot fucking bonkers_, back when they were functionally living together full-time in 168 square feet; but that Quentin, who had been dumping his school bag at the base of various desk chairs for _literally_ twenty years, could barely even see: a bizarrely personalized blindspot, formed from year upon year of casual habituation to—to something constant, and unremarkable: something so constant and unremarkable that it ceased to be something you could see. Except—except that there was nothing to say it _needed_ to be constant, was there; and it _isn't_ unremarkable in the least: because the hideous gaping maw of Quentin's messenger had been a quarter-sized cystic zit on the carefully tailored aesthetics of their (well—Eliot's) room: because _Eliot_—despite not being, actually, an especially tidy person by nature—doesn't have any particular problem, putting his own satchel away. And Quentin—who actually _was_, Eliot was coming to realize, a naturally tidy person; just a naturally tidy person trapped in the body of a person with an _unbelievably_ low opinion of how much time and energy he merited spending on himself—had proved surprisingly trainable on things like _keeping books off the bed_ and _putting used scratch paper in the recycling instead leaving it of the floor_ and also _folding and putting his laundry away_, and also sometimes Eliot's—; but—that fucking messenger bag. That just had _got_ to stop. And—and it _had_, was the thing: it had just taken—

—someone reminding him, over, and over, and over again. Until it started to become, again, something that Quentin could see.

"I think I was seven," Eliot says, to Margo. Nods, a little. "There was—this UFO badge I wanted to put on my backpack."

"Oh—kayy," Margo says. Still—_looking_ at him—

Eliot shrugs. "It was pink," he explains; and then. 

Huffs.

Margo straightens. "Oh," she says. 

Low.

Eliot nods. Nods. "So. I mean—when was the last time you talked to your grandma?" he asks, looking down at her; and then.

Meets her eyes: at last.

"...My grandma," she asks: sounding—_confused_, which is—

"Yeah. You know, your—your _abuela_," he says, "who used to take you to church."

She looks at him. Steady. For a long, long while.

"To Mass," she corrects, at last.

"To Mass," he agrees; and then—he reaches up. Touches her hair. Strokes his hand down, gentle, to cup her beautiful face.

She puts her hands on his wrist. Staring up at him, as though—

"No," Eliot reassures her, finally. Because—because she'd asked him— "I think—I think I'm _not_ having a personal crisis, for once": because—it's the truth.

She keeps looking up at him. Her eyes are so, so sharp; and wide; and—_lovely_—

"It's worth it?" she asks, low; and he shrugs.

"I don't know," he says. Breathing in. "I mean—maybe?" He sighs. "Maybe, like—" 

Swallowing.

"Maybe it could be," he says, finally. "For me."

It's quiet, between them. Rachel and Quentin, just-audible: somewhere—somewhere else.

"Okay," Margo says, at last, "Maybe—I'll talk to my abuela. If I can bitch to you about it, after": and Eliot feels—like a balloon, unsealed and let go. 

"Always," he says, quiet, as Margo squeezes his wrist.

When Eliot comes back out, having shown Margo where he put her bag and helped her get out her cosmetics and then ensconced her safely in the bathroom with her carefully-reserved towel and Eliot's own dressing gown, Rachel is still sitting at the table, her cheeks gone very pink, with Quentin, who is, for some reason, giggling helplessly.

"What did I miss?" Eliot asks, and pulls his desk chair over: why _does_ he only have three real chairs, anyway? Quentin's laughing too hard to answer, so Eliot looks at Rachel, who flushes redder as she explains, "I think I said it really badly, I just meant—I just meant she's not what I expected!"

"She wasn't expecting—," Quentin tries; and then—brays, eyes widening; so Eliot brushes a hand over his back, and looks at Rachel instead.

Rachel pushes the frizz of her hair away from her forehead, impatient: "I just didn't realize she'd be so—so _glamorous_," she explains, then adds, "Quentin! Stop _laughing_ at me!": pressing her hands to her red face, smiling sheepishly; as Quentin, shaking his head, reaches over (still laughing) to squeeze her hand.

Eliot—licks his lips. "You didn't—expect _Margo_," he says, "to be _glamorous_?"; then adds, helplessly, "Why on Earth _not_?": because Margo's just—it's just so much a _part_ of her: that she chooses, doesn't she, to be the kind of person who looks, always, like she could sleep for three weeks in a sack on the ground and still roll out at six in the morning every day with her eye makeup pristine: _Priorities, people!_ she'd bark, probably, while prodding the rest of them awake with the perfectly-polished toes of her Balenciaga pumps: _Carrying the One Ring through Mordor is no excuse to let yourself go!_

"The only two words you've used to describe her are, (a), 'ferocious'," Rachel protests, holding up a finger, "and (b)... well, I guess you never actually _said_ she was gay—"; as Quentin starts laughing even harder. Red-faced.

"It's not like _dressing well_ is incompatible with _kissing girls_," Eliot says, exasperated; as Quentin doubles over, making a noise like a donkey having a really exciting time with a goose. 

"Ohmigod," Quentin gasps, "help—"; so Eliot wraps an arm around his middle, squeezing him hard.

"Deep breaths," Eliot reminds him, "one—"; and Quentin breathes in: one; as Rachel is saying, "I never thought it was!": sounding—totally exasperated, even though the corner of her mouth is twitching. "It's just—she's _so_ glamorous, Eliot, I just would've expected you to _mention_ it!" Laughing, a little. "She looks like a _model_! She's probably the most stylish person I've ever _seen_, in real life! And it never even _came up_?"

"Why w-would it?" Quentin manages, lifting his red face.

Rachel stops. Looking—startled, almost, as she furrows her brows at Quentin, who is using his fingers to mop, clumsily, at his face. Eliot digs around in his pockets, but—

"For Eliot, I mean," Quentin adds. Hiccuping, a little: Eliot hasn't got a handkerchief, but Rachel has turned to start grabbing Kleenex from the box on windowsill; passing them over one at a time and then pocketing the third, after Quentin nods after the first two. He dries off his cheeks, breath steadying; and Eliot is just getting ready to say something idiotic like, _You know, it's not like a decently-fitting pair of pants is a lamentable waste of time and money_, when Quentin says, "I mean—just because it _would_ come up, for _us_?"

And Eliot.

Blinks.

Then—he looks, doesn't he: at his mom (in denim and olive plaid), her face paling as wide-eyed she looks back at him (in a slate-blue velvet waistcoat with his second-favorite pair of black-on-black trousers, the ones with the very very subtle lightening-shaped pinstripe, nothing too loud); and then—Eliot _feels_ it, almost: that tuning-fork buzz against the edges of his telekinesis as they both turn, as though tied together, to look at Quentin: who is wearing a faded black t-shirt, and a worn-out grey hoodie, and jeans that Eliot knows will, inevitably, when Quentin stands up, sag disappointingly at the ass.

"Oh," Rachel says, after a minute; and Quentin looks at Eliot, warm-eyed, and asks, "Did I get my face dry enough, or will you throw me out in the snow if I lean against you some more?"

"I wouldn't throw you out," Eliot says faintly. Somehow. But Quentin just smiles at him, and then snuggles back in against the crest of Eliot's shoulder, so Eliot—

—has literally one job, he knows, in that moment: he tucks an arm around Quentin's shoulders, and kisses his forehead, as Quentin slides an arm in around his waist.

Rachel is watching them. That odd, half-familiar expression: and Eliot—

"I can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth," he says, "but just so we're all on the same page: there is no law anywhere that says that lesbians can't be glamorous"; and Quentin lifts his head up.

"Hey," he says, feelingly. "Rachel, don't listen to him—I mean, yes, obviously lesbians can be glamorous, you should meet my stepmom, but—Margo's not a lesbian, she's bi."

"She's queer," Eliot corrects; and Quentin pulls away, leaning back in his chair, eyebrows lifting.

"She's queer and bi," Quentin counters, "and—not to have this argument _again_, for like the eleven thousandth time, only this time in front of your _mother_, but—not only are those two things not mutually exclusive—"

"I know that," Eliot says, stung.

"—but part of _why_ Margo doesn't always lead with 'hello, I am a bisexual' is—"

Eliot lifts his hands. "I'm not arguing with you," he insists. "I'm just saying—"

Quentin points at him. "If the next thing out of your mouth is some more of your idiotic internalized biphobia bullshit about _relative queerness_," he says; and Eliot—

—shuts his mouth. 

"Yeah, I thought so," Quentin says. 

His voice is a little sharp, but he's smiling. Nudging their knees together, under the table. Turning towards Rachel, Quentin explains, "I swear, you'd think we were unicorns, the way El acts, sometimes—he's lucky he's cute." 

Eliot takes a breath.

Beside him, Quentin pushes his chair back, standing. "Coffee?" he asks, as he heads over towards the coffee-maker and the sink.

"Oh," Rachel says. Wide-eyed. "I—um. Yes. Coffee would be great, thank you." She shifts, a little, pinking up; then blurts out, "I—I'm sorry, Quentin, I didn't realize."

"Realize... oh, about me, you mean?" Quentin's voice is muffled, inside the cupboard. "Honestly, I don't care, I get it all the time." He sets down two cups. A third, as he adds, "I mean—for a while, I was pretty sure that El was going to still be convinced I was straight on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, so—you're already one up": voice wry, as he sets down Eliot's travel mug, too, because they don't have four normal mugs yet, do they.

Eliot. Swallows: watching Rachel, who looks back at Eliot, with—those eyes—; and Eliot—

"It wasn't my finest hour," he admits, "or—finest several months, you know, whatever": fumbling around in his pockets. Pushing to his feet. He takes a breath: steady. Steadying. Like—Quentin, just over—

"Listen," Eliot says, to Rachel, "I—really need a smoke, but, um—can we talk, maybe? After?"

"Sure," she says, a little cautiously, and then—stands. "Or—I could come out with you?"

Eliot swallows. "You don't mind?" he says, holding up his cigarettes; and she shakes her head.

"I'd better get my jacket," she says, and pads out into the hall.

Eliot—turns. Looking after her, nearly without meaning to: it's—the strangest sensation, standing just where he is at the edge of his desk, facing the dividing wall between the hall and the kitchen; he can see the both of them, can't he: Quentin standing, his right foot rolled out, in his faded t-shirt and hoodie and those charming, embarrassing pants; and—Rachel. Walking away from him, down the hall. 

"Hey." Eliot comes over. Touches Quentin's back, beside the coffee-maker. Sidling close.

"Mm. You want coffee too, right?"

"Yeah, but—Q," Eliot says, with—his heart in his throat; and Quentin looks up. "I was afraid," Eliot says, very quietly, "and—I was dumb about it, and I'm sorry. You know that, right?"

Quentin's eyebrows scrunched together. "You were—"

"For that whole fucking—ten months, or whatever, that I was—such an idiot, all the time, about—about you liking boys." Eliot takes a breath. "About you liking _me_, okay? I was—I kept being. Such a total cock to you, that whole time, Jesus, just because I—I was just being a total fucking idiot about you liking _me_": and Quentin.

Looks up at him, and smiles.

Eliot pauses. Because—that's not exactly—

"Uh," he says, after a second. "You—you do like me, don't you?"

"...I mean," Quentin says. Sounding—resigned: "yeah," for all of about 0.07 seconds; saying, "I guess you're all right": but Quentin's always been a really shitty actor, so he can't maintain the tone more than about three words in; and—he's smiling. Incandescent, the whole time.

Eliot's hand is sweaty. Still crabbed and tight, around his packet of cigarettes, as Quentin, luminous, looks up at his face. 

"Anyway," Eliot says, weak. "I'm sorry I was such a shit"; and Quentin.

Shifts.

"You know." Quentin leans his hip against the edge of the counter: Eliot's mirror, one to one. "Do you remember the second time you came with me to Jersey?" Quentin asks.

"What?" Eliot blinks. "The second—oh. You mean—"

"Yeah," Quentin says. Nodding. Casual: right, no big deal, just that time that Quentin had come into Eliot's room, while Eliot was trying to pick what he'd wear for the first Cottage party of the semester, and then Eliot had stopped, heart thumping, to watch while Quentin paced back and forth and back and forth before he'd managed to get it together enough to explain— 

"Right after Dad told me he was sick," Quentin says, unnecessarily.

Eliot swallows. Throat tight. 

"Yeah," he says, "I—of course I do."

Quentin squints. "_Do_ you, though?" he asks. 

It should be—hard, Eliot thinks. Eliot is _expecting_ it to be hard, he's _braced_ for it to be hard, but Quentin—_Quentin_ sounds like—like he's about to start laughing, honestly. 

"Because—because what _I_ remember," Quentin adds, "is that I'd just found out my dad had terminal cancer, and I was—well, losing my marbles, basically all the time, and it was like three days into the term, or something, and I asked you to come with me to Jersey just so I didn't have to do it on my own, so you came with me and you talked to my dad about baseball—_baseball_, Eliot—and argued with him about whether or not it was acceptable to put anchovies in pasta sauce, and then you stayed up until like two in the morning rubbing my back in bed while I tried—and failed, by the way—not to freak out, and then in the morning while you were still in the shower, my dad told me, 'I like this one,' and I sort of—hit this moment," Quentin says, casual, "of like—absolute, perfect clarity; and I told him I was pretty sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."

Eliot stares at him. Stunned. 

"You did _what_?" he manages, finally. 

Feeling—slightly faint, honestly: and Quentin turns to the side: hiding, very imperfectly, a smile.

"You heard me fine," Quentin says; then reminds him, "You need a cigarette." Turning to fiddle, pointlessly, with the coffee maker: which is still a totally 100% automatic off-brand Keurig, finishing up brewing its first single cup. 

"I know," Eliot says; then— "That was—even at the absolute—_maybe_ four months in, Quentin": even though—

Quentin looks up. "Sure," he says, after a second. Shrugs, a little. "So what?"

"Q—four months is—_nothing_," Eliot protests; and Quentin huffs, shifting a little as he shakes his head. Eyes softening, as he reaches up. Rests a hand on Eliot's cheek. 

"You're getting stuck on theory again," he says. Voice soft. His thumb brushing, very softly, against Eliot's cheekbone: as Eliot tries to—say something, or do something, or—; while Quentin just—_looks_ at him: impossibly gentle. _Brown_, Eliot is thinking. Coffee. Rich turned earth. Muddy ponds—

"Look." Quentin's voice is quiet. "I know that you've got—you know, baggage, don't we all, but—if your definition of 'being a total cock to me' includes that whole time you were talking me through Brakebills culture shock and a month and a half off my meds and then making sweet, sweet love to me with your eyes open oh and also helping me figure out how to cope with my dying dad," very gentle: like his fingertips, like— "then—_sweetheart_," Quentin says: like his eyes. "I think I need to buy you a dictionary for your birthday, okay?"

Eliot swallows. 

Because everything—inside of him. Is sticking, thick, in his throat. 

"But I—I want to be—_better_ than that," Eliot manages, finally, "I'm—_trying_, to be better than that, I want. I want to be—the person you—fucking keep insisting you see," he explains, "when you look at me"; and Quentin's mouth curls: small, soft. 

"Yeah," Quentin says, quiet, "I know": looking up at him, as he says, "That's why, El"; and Eliot's ribs jerk.

Helpless.

He takes a breath. Leans down, pressing their foreheads together. Quentin hums, sweet; and Eliot breathes in deep, to say—

—just as Rachel steps back into the kitchen.

"Uh—sorry," she says; as Eliot jerks back. "No, don't," Rachel says, hurried. "I—sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, I thought you were done—talking, um—"

"No, it's okay." Quentin's hand slides down, over Eliot's hip. Squeezes. "We were just cuddling—he'll be cross if he doesn't get his nicotine, anyway. Your coffee's done," he says, and passes Rachel the mug.

"I—yes." Because somehow Eliot. Is still clutching his cigarettes, only very slightly squashed: "I really do need—sorry," he says; and then laughs, a little. "This is turning out to be—a weird day": and Quentin pats him reassuringly on the ass.

"Go smoke with your mom," Quentin says: a deeply bizarre statement, but Eliot is—learning to roll with it, or—trying to, anyway; so Eliot goes over and slides on his Uggs, his coat; and then—

—then he holds the fire escape door open, for his mother.

Outside, he lights up. Takes a drag, in silence. Thinking about—

—about Quentin, pink-cheeked, downstairs in the kitchen that morning with Ted; who had looked over at Eliot—careful, evaluative—while Eliot, self-conscious, tucked his still-wet hair back because Quentin didn't have a decent hair dryer because of course he didn't, and then Ted had smiled and said, _Coffee?_ On their way out the door a few hours later Ted had hugged Quentin tight-tight-tight; and then—startlingly—Eliot; and then that night back at Brakebills in their usual bed (Quentin's), Quentin had wriggled up warm and good-smelling and puzzle-piece-right against Eliot's body in the dark, and asked, _So, um—Jules has been asking, so like—are you, like—my boyfriend?_; and Eliot had swallowed: plucked. Vibrating. He had had—his arms around him, in that safegoodwarm Quentinish space; and Eliot had said, _I think—I'm probably unboyfriendable, Q_: throat sore, thinking about—Arturo, Spencer—_Brett_—; _Not really housetrained_, he'd added: rubbing Quentin's back, feeling—ashamed. Bee-stung. _Humiliated_; but Quentin had just made a soft, mammalian kind of a noise, and squashed his face in against Eliot's bare chest. Eliot had felt—relief, honestly. Mostly. Of a kind. He had rested a hand on Quentin's back: warm, just like always; and listened to Quentin's soft, familiar little pre-sleep sigh: and _I'm sorry_, Eliot had thought, dreading—all of it: their messy breakup, his bad behavior, Quentin's bent head and sad eyes and broken heart—and then Quentin had mumbled, sounding half-asleep: _M'patient_; and then, _—hate carpets, anyway_.

When he looks up, Rachel is watching him: that sharp, familiar expression: _Hungry_, Eliot thinks. His heart—

—a jumbled sea of—

—of nothing, he thinks.

"Um—sorry," he says. Clears his throat. "I'm having some kind of—." He waves a hand. "Emotional shellshock, or something, I think," he says, finally; and then laughs: and her face softens.

"Good emotional shock or bad emotional shock?" she asks, gentle; and Eliot laughs. It sounds—frantic, even to his own ears. Wild.

"God, I don't even know," he says, and then laughs again. "Do you ever just—have a moment, like, an hour into a conversation, where you find out you thought you'd been talking about one thing, and it turns out that this whole time maybe you were talking about something else, and then—the second you start thinking about it, you realize that—you can't even be surprised? Like—the whole time the other person kept—making references to—I don't know, _Star Wars_, probably: they talked about _Star Wars_ and they _told_ you they were talking about _Star Wars_ and then they _kept_ talking about _Star Wars_, only—the whole time," Eliot explains, "the whole fucking time, for some reason you thought you were talking about—I don't know. C.S. Lewis, or something."

Rachel shifts, a little. 

"Yeah," she says, after a minute. "Once or twice."

He nods. Rubs at his face. "Yeah," he says. "So."

She looks down at her feet. Eliot smokes. Then, after a long, blissfully nicotine-infused second, Rachel asks: "Can I have one of those?" 

Nods at his cigarette, when he glances at her.

"I—" He looks at it. Then realizes— "I—Jesus, of course, sorry," he laughs. "God, what—a bizarre fucking day": he explains, as he gets another out, lights it for her, then realizes—

It's okay. She's still looking at her feet.

She looks up, though, to take it: "Thanks." Her eyes meeting his, just for an instant: he looks out over the railing instead, as two feet away, his mother takes a long, well-practiced drag.

Eliot looks back out over the alley. The building opposite. The light is odd, he thinks: it's getting late. The sun, somewhere unseen, going down. 

"I didn't know you smoked," he says, after a minute. There are—cracks, aren't there: gold, bruise-purple, showing at the fissures in the clouds. 

"I don't," Rachel says. "I quit when I found out I was pregnant." 

Her voice is quiet. They're thickening again, aren't they. He hopes it doesn't start up again. The snow. 

"I did have a life before you, you know," Rachel says; and Eliot takes a long, slow breath.

"Yeah. I know. Just—" He scratches a thumb over his eyebrow. "You didn't exactly get much of one," he says, and laughs. 

She doesn't answer. 

He shakes his head. "I keep thinking," he explains, "about—how I'm—so much older, now": throat sore. "Than you were," he explains, "when I was born."

When he looks at her, she's watching him: that unreadable expression.

"I'm twenty-six," he says, pointlessly.

"I know," she says; and he nods.

"You were nineteen," he says; and she tilts her head.

"I know," she says. "I was there."

Eliot sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Fuck," he says; then—sighs, again. Feeling— "I'm so fucking sorry," he says: sore. Scraped. "About how I—God." 

He swallows. Straightens up. Takes a breath. Relaxed hips, supple back, strong core, and then—

"I wanted to talk to you," Eliot says: steady, "because I desperately owe you an apology."

"Eliot," she says, and then. Sighs, which—

"This whole week," he insists. "This whole—_stupid_ situation, where—you were stuck, and we could help you, and—I _wanted_ to help you, I've never—wanted to be—_estranged_ from you, or whatever": he says; and laughs, like paper crumpling up in his chest. "So here you were, trying to—_reach out_ to me, and—_I_ could see that, and _Quentin_ could see that, and—instead of actually—getting over myself for ten fucking seconds, I just kept being—an _untenable_ cock to you." Throat sore. "I've been—petty and selfish and—a raging self-centered prick, honestly, and I—I keep just—_judging_ you": chest tight; "and—making all these assumptions, about all these choices you made, like—I have any right to, or like—like I know anything _about_ you, which—I don't, really, do I?" he says, helpless. Looking at her: her lovely, familiar face. "I think _Quentin_ knows you better, honestly, after a week, than I do after—nineteen years, or." Breathing in, deep. 

"Or—whatever," he says, quiet. "Twenty-six."

Looking into her brown eyes, which—aren't, actually, much like his at all. 

"Anyway," Eliot says, after a second. "I just—I don't want to be an asshole to you, and I think—I _know_—that I have been, and—there's no excuse, for any of it, and I'm sorry." 

Huddled inside her coat, watching him: she's just—letting her cigarette burn, isn't she. The cherry—

"Besides." He looks away. Laughs, a little. "I mean—all teenagers are morons, God knows I don't want anyone to—to spend my life judging me for anything I chose, when—_I_ was—eighteen, or nineteen, or. Whatever": and Rachel.

Shifts.

He scratches at his eyebrow. Looking at—her toes, in her boots: sturdy, efficient. Very ugly. With—

"I don't know," Rachel says, after a second. "I think I do": and Eliot.

Looks up.

Her expression is—strange, sort of: that odd, un-mother-ish look she used to get, when she looked at him when he was a little kid, and he couldn't tell, not at all, what she was thinking: it'd made him wonder, then, if they were even—the same kind of being at all. _Well—we're all changelings, sort of, aren't we?_, Quentin had said, once; and then kissed the corner of Eliot's mouth.

"Sometimes I think—there're only two things I've done that I'm really proud of," Rachel says, slowly: still wearing that expression that looks like she is—in two places at once, and only one of them might, conceivably, be with Eliot at all. "One of them was leaving, when I did," she says; and Eliot—flinches. "And the other—the _other_, Eliot, was raising you." Her voice—achy. Strained. "And I—I didn't really do either of them _right_, you know?"

A sharp, hot pain runs down the underside of Eliot's sternum. _You did okay_, he should say, _Mom, you did_ fine—but—

"I just—I did so much _wrong_, with you," she is saying. Looking at him, like— "But—it was so hard to see, El, how bad things were—how bad they'd _really_ gotten—until. Until I'd left." 

She takes a drag, looking away from him. 

Shakes her head.

"I didn't think you married him for his way with a belt," Eliot says, finally. Throat sore; and Rachel ducks her head.

"Jesus," she says, after a minute: Eliot's back prickles, all over. He's not sure—he doesn't think he's ever heard her swear. And then, voice quiet, she says, "That—_fucking_ cock."

And Eliot.

Jerks his head, nodding, and turns away. 

They smoke. It's—it should be—nice, or something. To just be—_quiet_, to just—

"I keep—asking myself," Rachel says. "You know? Why—I did marry him, and—it was just—_God_. You get to my age, and you keep thinking—how did I get here, Christ? And—I keep coming back to—just. _Indiana_," she says: her voice a pang, high up, in Eliot's throat.

"And you regret it," he says. Looking down. 

"El—," she says, shifting; and he shakes his head.

"I mean, I don't—_blame_ you," he says. Laughs, a little. "God, I mean—I regret—almost everything I did, when I was, that age—"

"No," she says, low and fierce, "Eliot. _Listen_ to me."

And Eliot—is bristles and spikes, all over, under his skin; a hot, unwanted kind of longing and repulsion: magnets, held at the middle of him. "Yeah," he says, anyway.

He looks up, somehow.

Meets her eyes.

She nods: once, decisive.

"I have regretted, many times, that I married him," she says. Steady. "And—I've regretted, many times, I had a baby, especially—_when_ I had a baby, _how_ I had that baby." Eliot takes a deep breath, slow; and Rachel adds, "But I've never, not once, regretted that—that the baby I ended up with, that the person he ended up being, was you": her voice steady. Low to the ground.

He swallows. 

Turning. Looking out at—nothing, honestly. 

The alley.

The blurring clouds.

"It probably makes me a terrible mother to admit that I regret—any part of it at all," Rachel mutters, at the other side of the landing; and Eliot—pulls his face back. Looking at her, actually—_looking_ at her: this odd, shy, beautiful woman, head bowed; clumsy about herself and awkward with people, fitting badly in Skokie and then fitting badly in Indiana and then—she'd fitted badly in Middletown, too, hadn't she; but with—with that steel _core_ in her: a hum, low down, under the edges of Eliot's skin. _Relentless_, he is thinking. Like Margo; like Quentin; like everyone he loves best in the world.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/loves_best)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/loves_best)

[Relentless: like everyone he loves best in the world.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/loves_best)

"No it doesn't," he says. "It doesn't make you a terrible mother at all"; and she meets his eyes. "I think—," he says, and then.

Stops.

"I think it makes you a person," he says, finally. "And—a lot more honest." Swallowing. "Than—most of us."

She looks at him. And then—

"There was this wedding," she says. "In St. Louis. I'd never been further than Evanston, before. But there was this—_God_, it was terrible," she says, and then laughs: shaking her head. "The last death throes of the eighties," she says, "you should've _seen_ my outfit": wry; and he snorts.

"A lot of neon?" he guesses.

"The _shoulderpads_," she corrects; then adds, "My hair was so encrusted with gel I think it could've stopped a bullet"; and he laughs. 

Then. Sighs.

Rubbing at his face. "I can certainly see why you might've wanted an escape from that."

She doesn't say anything, for a minute. Then—

"No," she says. "Not—exactly." 

He looks back.

Her face is—hard to read, but not in—that way, that same way, that way he's known for years; her eyebrows are scrunching together, something like—the way they both look, he knows, when they're trying to read. 

"It was—this girl from my high school," she explains, very slowly; and then sighs. "Her name was Amanda Buchanan and she was—two years ahead of me, she'd been—ohh." She sighs. Laughs, a little: "A _cheerleader_," she admits: wry. "And then she—went to college for her M.R.S., which is—I know it's a terrible thing to say but it was totally true, for her, and she met—this awful sack of meat who was in business school at Washington University, so she invited Jenny Richmond—another girl who'd been at Niles West—and. I went too, because—I don't know," she says, sounding oddly desperate, "because—Jenny had a car, and—we'd been friends, sort of, Amanda was—"

"Popular," Eliot says, quiet; and Rachel sighs.

"Yeah," she says, after a minute. "She was popular. And—rich, and _happy_, and—_I_ was popular, though I never really—understood _why_, because I _wasn't_ rich, and I wasn't—flashy, or—"

"Yeah," Eliot says, "but you're pretty": and Rachel looks away. Her eyes and mouth gone—pinched, and painful, and tight.

"But I was _pretty_," she says: her voice thick and heavy with loathing; and Eliot turns: to stub out his cigarette, and light another. 

After a minute, Rachel says, hesitant, "I think it should be like—owning a car," and then— "You should need to have a _license_, you should need to pass a _test_": all at once; "because I was very, very pretty": her low rough voice; "and I was very, very dumb and I met a very, very handsome blond boy at a wedding the month after I finished high school when—my beautiful rich happy friend was getting married and afterwards everyone told me: good grief, you can't mean to actually go around with _this_ one, can you? He's studying _agricultural science_, he's going to _inherit a farm_, and good lord, Rachel, the only thing you're good at is wearing pretty clothes and getting boys to write essays for you, you've fainted _twice_ in the back of your dad's butcher shop, why would you ever—can. Can you. Light me up again": holding out her cigarette with long, trembling pale fingers; and Eliot turns when he lights it—smelling lighter fluid and sawdust and clover, tasting overripe peaches—so she can't see that he doesn't have anything else in his hands. 

"And—they weren't _wrong_, were they," Rachel says, unsteady, as she takes it back. "Someone—less suited to be a farm wife is—pretty hard to imagine": her voice thick; as she ducks.

Her head.

Eliot's heart thumps. Heavy, under his ribs. He is remembering—Rachel, knitting booties and blankets; Rachel, stirring jam and rolling pie; Rachel, bending over her sewing machine doubling-up the seams in a man's worn-out old work vest; Rachel, at the heavy ancient porcelain sink—

—Rachel, who was, all the while, a person that he couldn't see at all.

"So why did you?" Eliot asks, finally. It comes out—scratchy. Plaintive. "What were you _thinking_? Just—oh, classic teen rebellion, _Romeo and Juliet_ bullshit, everyone hates this guy, we have nothing in common, guess I'll just... _convert_ and _marry_ him?"; and Rachel—

Rachel _laughs_. Huge, and wild, and _loud_: that new laugh; that laugh that Eliot keeps catching himself thinking—belongs to _Quentin_, somehow, as though it didn't—so obviously, impossibly, belong to Rachel herself—

"Oh, God no," Rachel says, "I didn't think—much of anything, honestly—I was too busy getting pregnant in the back of his truck."

And.

It's not as though, honestly, Eliot had much of any illusions, about his origin story: the period where he'd taken a sort of pleased, possessive delight in his very young, very beautiful mother, next to all the stodgy middle-aged moms who brought his school friends to birthday parties and Christmas plays had ended right around when Eliot figured out the connection between his parents' tenth wedding anniversary, his tenth birthday, and a number of condescending, self-satisfied remarks made to Rachel regarding the proximity between the two; but—but it still hurts, somehow. Even after—

"Right." Eliot nods. Nods. Swallowing, as he asks, "And you didn't—ever think about." Breathing in. "Getting an abortion," throat thick, "or"; and Rachel sighs.

"I thought you didn't want to judge me," she says, quiet.

"I'm not," he says, flat. "I just—_Mom_": desperate. "You lived in—a major American city, you weren't—destitute, you weren't a fucking Evangelical Christian and I _know_ you're pro-choice, so—I just don't—I don't _understand_"; and Rachel.

Sighs.

"Eliot," she says. Sighs, again, before she—spreads her hand. Her cigarette burning, neglected, between two fingers. "I feel like—yes, of course, the part of me that's got—some kind of sense of dignity and pride wants to say that—I don't know, that I made a well-considered choice in full understanding of all my options, or—that I _would've_ made that choice, if I'd—just had the _chance_, but—but I honestly don't remember if I _did_," she says. Voice wet. "I don't remember," she says, "if I thought about it at all, okay? I was—a _kid_, Eliot, and I wasn't like—I was a _dumb_ kid, okay?" Laughing, a little: she looks up at him, with big, pleading eyes. "Do you remember Fiona Mason?"

He shifts. "As in—Ethan and Elise?" 

"Yeah," she says. "Their oldest. She—God, she came by, when you were—I don't know, eight, maybe, because she was doing a special article for some sort of—smart kids' national news magazine, about rural feminism, and I'd—there'd been a meeting, and a few of us from the Wal-Mart had gone—it'd mostly been about whether we wanted to ask for more predictable hours or a daycare center, though, it was—"

He shifts. "You went to a labor meeting?"

"It wasn't—none of us thought of it like that," she says. Sighs, hunching up. "We just thought we needed help getting to work and also looking after our kids."

He looks down. Silent.

"So this kid comes by, this—_child_, who I remembered back when she was this stocky brick of an 11-year-old who hadn't grown into her body yet, selling me Girl Scout cookies when I was pregnant; and now she's—not even out of high school yet, and she's writing an article—an actual _article_, to be _published_—about the intersection of labor rights and rural feminism and the church." Rachel rubs at her face. "At eighteen, _Fiona_ was on her way to U of C with a lacrosse scholarship and her top five choices for law school already picked out," she says. "At eighteen, I'm not even sure I knew who the president was. Fiona Mason I was not."

He huffs. Quiet.

"So—look." Rachel stops. Comes closer, until—she could almost touch him, couldn't she. "Because I think this is—important, Eliot," she says. "I don't know what would've happened, okay? If my family hadn't been so outraged, or I hadn't been so—idiotically young": very quiet. "But _they_ dug their feet in, so I dug _mine_ in, and Craig's parents weren't precisely delighted about it either, _God_, I mean—they were always—absolutely clear, that he could've done better than, than a working-class Jew from Skokie, I mean—Jesus, Marianne barely even—_spoke_ to me, until after Craig's dad died, but they were perfectly clear that if there was a baby, that meant he had better marry me and make the best of it, like it was—1890, not 1990." 

"Yeah," he says. Thick. "I remember."

Rachel sighs. Squeezing his elbow. 

"Because that was just—how they thought it had to be," she says, quiet. He nods; and she adds, "And the whole thing had this sort of—God, it seems so stupid, now, but part of me _liked_ it, okay?" 

Eliot looks at her. Thinking—; but she rolls her eyes. Voice sharp, as she explains: "It seemed—_romantic_, to me, you know?" Sounding—impatient, almost. "Like—_Romeo and Juliet_, just like you said," she says, and then tilts her head. "Or—more probably," she admits, "_Say Anything_."

He looks at her. Helpless, barely understanding: her odd, wry, in-two-places at once expression—

"I was eighteen, Eliot," she reminds him. "Everyone's a moron, when they're eighteen."

He swallows. 

Nods, after a second.

"And—listen. I'm not apologizing for—for either of us," Rachel says. "But—I want you to—_understand_, El: because—yes, it was hard, at first, it was—_incredibly_ hard, when I was pregnant, and—we didn't have _any_ money, and, you know, Craig thought—college is great, sure, if you need it, but it wasn't as though he hadn't been _brought up_ on the farm, it wasn't as though _Stephen_ had needed college, had he, to manage it, and if Craig dropped out it meant he could take construction jobs, when he wasn't being Stephen's farmhand, more or less, so—so that's what Craig did. And so—that was when I started working as a cashier, because it was—just about the only thing I was qualified to do, and I'd—my parents weren't—we'd never had any money, so I was used to figuring out how to—God, it seemed—so _ridiculous_, all of a sudden": laughing, half-frantic. "That all the sewing I'd done to keep myself on the right side of fashion in high school with stuff from the Goodwill was suddenly—going to be expected to keep a baby, an _actual real-life human baby_, clothed and warm and—God, Eliot, that whole fall and winter, I felt like I was living on the leading edge of a panic attack." 

She takes a breath, slow. 

"And the only people who helped me," she says, "_really_ helped me, not just—well. The only people who _actually_ helped were—the people at church": and Eliot flinches.

Looking up at the low, dimming-grey sheet of the sky.

"His church," Eliot says, after a second; and Rachel snorts.

"His parents' church, honestly," she says. Flat. "He wasn't exactly—a paragon of religious devotion, was he, back when he was going on benders at his high school buddy's wedding, and knocking up Jewish girls in the back of his truck."

Eliot can feel his shoulders hunching. He forces them back.

Back. 

"And—that's what you thought you wanted," he says. His tongue thick in his mouth. "They—were nice to you, so you converted?"

He means it as—a joke, honestly, mostly; but—Rachel tilts her head. Considering.

"Not—exactly," she says, slow. "More like—I felt like—a guest, you know? A stranger." She sighs. "And. I didn't want to be rude."

He shifts. "You _changed your entire belief system_," he says, flat, "because you didn't want to be _rude_?": but Rachel—

—waves a hand. Her expression—twisted up, a little; impatient.

"It wasn't like that, for me," she says; and then, "It's not like I ever actually believed in God": and Eliot—

—can actually feel it, when his mouth falls open.

He closes it, after a second. "You—I'm sorry," he says, and then laughs. Waves at her, with his cigarette. "I—_you_ don't believe in _God_?"

Rachel looks down. Fiddling with hers: she's barely smoking it, is she. "Well—I mean." She sighs, then waves it, vaguely. "I don't really—_get_ religion," she says, looking up at him: her eyes big, and dark; with an odd, plaintive note in her voice. "Not—_their_ kind of religion, anyway, not at _all_, I don't—_understand_ it, Eliot, I spent—all those years, going to temple with my parents, which seemed like it was mostly about history and brisket, as far as I was concerned, and then—_then_, there was—church, with Stephen and Marianne and—and Craig, and _you_, and—the thing. The thing that made it. So hard, to really—pull it apart, was."

She stops. Takes a breath.

"There were so many people there, El, who were really lovely," she says, scratchily. "So many people who—they'd turned themselves inside out to help me, hadn't they? These people who—Maggie and Christopher Dixon gave me all their old baby things, before you were born; and Joshua Tanner, of all people, taught me how to change a diaper; and then Tammy Atkinson or one of her kids came by every day for the entire six months after Craig inherited the farm, helping me get my feet under me in the house, the—_space_, and the. _Loneliness_, while Marianne and Craig were doing all—the farm things," she says, helpless, "that I didn't understand at all: Tammy and the Atkinson girls—looking after you, or helping me unpack, or showing me how to use—that terrible old oven, just—all these people, and they'd all been—it was just." She takes a breath. "It was so hard for me to really—_see_ it," she says, "that they _could_ be so wonderful, and so helpful, and so kind; and still—say everything they said, in church, and mean—_all_ of it. All the worst parts of it." She swallows. Looking up at him: her eyes dark and hurt. "I really thought—for such a long time, I thought—that _they_ would change": her voice fierce. "For _you_. Do you—can you understand?"

Eliot's pulse wobbles. Turns over. She's watching him, eyes wide; he jerks his head: _maybe_, he is thinking, or—_no_, or—; and she sighs. Shifts, stepping closer; then slides her hand around his elbow.

"I'm sorry," Rachel says, very quietly. "They—accepted me," she says. "And—you were the one who paid the price, when I thought it meant something it didn't."

Eliot takes a breath. "You _converted_," he reminds her. Feeling—helpless. Sore all over. "You—literally changed yourself to—to _fit_ with them, they didn't just—take you," he says, "as you were." 

She doesn't answer, for a minute. "But it wasn't—_like that_, for me," she says, "it didn't—_feel_ like that, for me"; and then—she sighs. "And for a long time—a _very_ long time. I didn't understand that—that there could be—things, inside a person, where—" 

She hesitates. Her fingers light, against the wool of his coat. 

"Where it _wasn't_ easier," she says, finally. Looking up at him. "To just—hide." 

And all of a sudden, Eliot's vision swims. 

He blinks. And blinks, and—

—_blinks_—

"And—and you weren't _like_ me," she is saying: something—bizarre, and frantic, and—_wild_, in her voice: a wave. A wave: "so even if—even if I had... _understood_, enough, to've thought—'I need to take him away'": unsteady. "I couldn't—be sure, could I? Because—because it seemed so—so _important_ to you, Eliot": plaintive. Desperate: her hand tightening on his elbow: "It _mattered_ to you," she says, rough, "not like—it wasn't like it was for me, where—it _never_ had been, not—not—_before_, not—_then_, it hadn't ever mattered to me, not _once_. But you," she says, scratchy, tremulous: "you so obviously. Truly, actually, _believed_."

And something.

Something—is cracking, somewhere deep under Eliot's ribs: nowhere left to, to keep—_hiding_ from—

—four, and—lights—like candles, everywhere, and—and _songs_, that he _had_ forgotten, almost: singing, with—

—seven, and the back fence, and that crushing weight of that—awful warm disappointment, coming from Pastor Tim—

—eleven, and Taylor, and the brighthot singing red rush of righteousness—

—fourteen: and that flash of light, _inside_ of him, just before Logan—_stepped_—

—and sixteen, and that youth group trip to Deam Lake, and Taylor, Taylor, _Taylor_ again, and Eliot's—electric lit-up sacred skin—

—and then—

—then college; and growing up; and getting—_over_ it, still—dumb and useless and, and stupid about—a lot of things, but—but not _that_ anymore, thank—no one in particular; until—

(—except—)

—until he came, at last, face-to-face with the very, darkest, most shameful part of himself: the part of him that had blinked sticky slightly still-drunk eyes down into a blue book in an exam hall at Brakebills, a month and change into his first post-Purchase adventure in professional actor-slash-bartendering in the city: an Eliot who had seen the diagrams for an anti-incursion sigil; and had instinctually shifted his hands across the page in something he would later know to recognize as the first stage of the von Weyhausen-Patel Transplanar Audiovisual Enmeshment (D. von Weyhausen & S. Patel 1994, a.k.a _your fucking coked-up psychic walkie-talkies always giving me fucking migraines_ [Adiyodi 2016]): an Eliot who, in the tremulous honey-golden light welling up after, had thought, just for an instant—

—that he saw the face of God.

"Or," Rachel corrects, very rough, "I thought you did."

"I—" 

Eliot shifts. Swallowing, as he presses shaking hands up, to wipe at his face. 

Rachel reaches into her pocket. Fishes out—a Kleenex, which he accepts; as he takes a breath. 

Another.

"Yeah," he manages, finally. Blinking. "I think—I mean, I _did_ believe, or—sort of, I—"; and then stops. Shakes his head. "I did believe, in—a lot of it." Looking up. "At least," he tells the underside of the landing to 3A, 3B: "at one point I—I wanted to, I think": quiet. That—_loss_, again: again; all over again. His cracked-open ribs. 

"I mean, there was a time, when I still _could_ want to," he says, "to—to believe in—in all of it"; and then.

He takes a breath.

_Christ—_, he is thinking, with a brand-new unfamiliar part of himself; about someone he can barely identify, and couldn't begin to name: _Christ_, he is thinking, _that poor fucking kid_.

Beside him, Rachel nods. She brushes her head against his arm: quick, gentle; and he—can't stand it, really. So he shifts, and puts it around her shoulders, instead.

His mom sighs, warm and soft, and then wraps an arm around his waist, and leans her cheek against his chest.

He huffs, after a second.

"Mm?" she asks, looking up.

"You really don't believe in God," he asks. Checking: and she—hums, thoughtful.

"I don't _not_ believe in God, exactly," she says, after a second, "I just—don't know how much it actually matters one way or the other."

Eliot nods. Feeling—

—an odd, tremulous sensation rising up from—from that black hole inside of him: he only really realizes what it is after it's taken him, swept him away: Eliot—_laughing_, just—_helplessly_, and pulling—just away. Rubbing at the slow, dull ache in his forehead.

"Eliot?" she asks, sounding worried; but he shakes his head.

"You know," he says, when he—thinks he can get words out again, maybe. "Quentin—_Quentin_, who is sort of—_touchingly_ clueless, like—almost all of the time, about social cues and expectations—Quentin was worried, the first night you were here, if it was going to be an issue for you that he wasn't Jewish," Eliot says; and then shakes his head as she frowns, her eyebrows scrunching together. "He probably—read some book somewhere," he explains, "about—I mean, even _I_ know that Judaism is passed down maternally but given the obvious issues with trying to translate _that_ over to our particular situation, I'm guessing that his _real_ issue is that—that somewhere in some doorstopper tragicomedy of manners he beavered his way through for his English degree, someone mentioned that it's, like, a tremendous faux pas to aspire to the hand of someone whose parents are from a different belief system than you are, or something, but—he's going to be relieved, probably," Eliot concludes, "to learn that he has _literally_ no reason to be worried"; and then he reaches out again: squeezing her, hard, around her shoulders, as she laughs.

"I like him," she says, after a second. Smiling up at him. "I mean—a lot, Eliot. I like him a _lot_."

"Yeah," he says, feeling—he doesn't know. "Me too," he says, because—because it's true, and he feels—not—he doesn't _know_; so he rests his cheek against her head.

The sky is still—shifting, low and grey. Those little—glints of color, through the cloud cover. He wonders what it'll look like, in the morning.

"Not interested in—continuing the apparently grand family tradition of disapproving of your kid's life partners, then?" he suggests, as a joke. 

Except.

She shifts, a little. 

"I wouldn't," she says, finally. Turning, to look up. "Not unless—"

And then she stops, as she meets his eyes.

And Eliot.

Has to.

Take a step back.

Dig out his cigarettes again, with shaking hands. 

"Worried, are you," he asks, "what I learned at the paternal knee?"; and his voice cracks. He lights one, mouth full of wood shavings; hand trembling as he holds out another: her eyes are on him, fixed and steady; but she—

—hesitates.

"More worried what you learned at mine," she says, very quietly, then nods, holding out her hand, so he lights that one for her, too: tasting—lighter fluid, and—

—and feeling—

"Well, I am," he admits; and then scrubs at his face. "Constantly," he says; and then laughs a little, rough; as Rachel takes a deep, slow breath.

"You're not anything like him," she says, finally. "You're not—and _certainly_," she says, very low, "not with _Quentin_": and Eliot.

Swallows.

"You don't—see it all, though, do you," Eliot says, and Rachel sighs, turning away, to give them both space enough, to smoke, productively, in silence.

"No," she says, finally, "but"; and then is quiet. 

"But," he says.

Rachel turns away. Fidgety: she takes a drag, then turns back, saying, "I think I see more of it than you think": with a low, quiet ferocity in her voice. "And I see that—that you _care_ about him, and you _show_ it—no, listen to me," she says, sharp, "I'm your mother, and—and I haven't played that card, not _once_, Eliot, not in—twenty-six years, but—if I know one thing, it's—what it looks like, when—when someone is." Taking a deep, slow breath. "Being sold what someone _tells_ them is love," she says, quiet, "when it isn't."

Eliot looks down. His throat— 

"You are a way with Quentin that—that I have never, _ever_ had," Rachel says. Ferocious. "You listen to him, and you _hear_ him, you—take care of him and support him and, and you—you _play_ with him, Eliot, you have _fun_ with him, you _like_ him, okay? And he likes _you_: you're—_all of yourself_, with him." She takes a breath, deep. "And—that was what was always missing, wasn't it, with—with me and Craig, and—"

She turns her face.

"There was—just all this time," she says, thick. "Where I kept asking myself—when did it change? When did—_stop_ being—romantic, or." She makes a noise: the dying cousin of a laugh. "_Manly_," she says, "or—"; and then. 

Jerks back. Cheeks flushing, as she shakes her head. 

He feels—an irregular, jumping-up feeling in his chest: when did _what_ change, he wants to ask, two dozen possibilities suggesting themselves: when did the _constant yelling_ change? Or the raised hand, because it was more effective, usually, than letting it fall? When did the leaning over your back at the kitchen sink while you were trying to do the dishes and cringing away from him stop being so gosh darn _manly_?: Eliot wants to ask. Good heavens, how could you _ever_ put a finger on it, he wants to shout, when he stopped romantically-taking your paychecks from the Wal-Mart, and just started doing it like a regular abusive and controlling dick?

"When did it stop being hot," Eliot says, instead. Around that tight, serrated sharpness in his throat.

She doesn't say anything, for a minute. Then—

"Yes," she says, "when did it stop being hot."

Eliot looks down. Nods, a little.

"It's funny," she says, after a second. "How much—what you _think_ means love, when you're eighteen, actually—means something else."

Yeah, Eliot thinks. "Hilarious," he agrees, Atacama-dry; and she huffs. 

Looking up at him, with her dark, lovely eyes. 

"It wasn't the right question, was it?" Her voice soft. "It was never—"

She sighs. Shakes her head.

"It was never," she says, "a question of what changed with _him_."

Eliot looks down, at the hideous tassels on his Uggs.

"What did change?" he asks, finally. "For you." Swallowing. "Because—I never understood—"

He turns away. Rubbing, with one shaky hand, at his face.

He says, "Why you left."

At the other side of the landing, Rachel—stands. Very still. A statue, in—in mom jeans, and olive plaid—

"I mean," Eliot says, shifting: a bubble of panic, rising up inside him. "I—I do _get_ it," he says, thick, "_I_ would've—I mean, I remember—all this—_bullshit_": halfway to—laughing, or— "All those _fucking_ years," he says, "of you—standing _between_ us, you know? Like—this whole fucking week, I've kept remembering—drawing, under the table, or—or doing my homework in the kitchen, or—or getting my—my fucking SAT scores": his voice cracks, that fucking—death sentence of a number: _God_. "You spent—just—_years_, Mom, hiding—_protecting_ me, you _kept me safe_: and I—I _know_ that, I _knew_ that, I _always_ knew that, because—because you were—a refuge," he says, thick, "for me, in—in that house. I mean, you taught me to _sew_, you know? And I—I'd forgotten about my backpack, but—but I remembered—mending, with you, and—the costumes, for _Les Mis_, and—and that blanket": heartsick, sore; "that you kept in the sideboard, for me, just—for years." He takes a breath. "Which is—it's not a _life_, is it?" he says, desperate; wanting—to look at her, but he can't. "It's not a life," he says. "To be. A wall, in front of somebody else."

He can't. He can't look at her. Can he.

"But—I can know that," he says. Unsteady. "And still—not know": tongue thick. "How to be with you," he says, "when—you're _not_ that, even—_even though_ I—it's not that I don't—_understand_, not—I understand perfectly," he says, "why you'd want to be—anywhere else": and then swallows, as she—shifts. "I just—I've never understood why you left _when_ you left," he says: feeling—

He turns. Stepping—

—away. Up to the railing: for—the air, or the, the snow: still heaped up on top of the wood; falling, unstable under its own weight, at its edges. The rims sharp, in the aftermath of—of all those harmless little avalanches.

"I mean," Eliot says, touching it; cold: a sharp swift pain, "I've never understood why you left me with Dad." 

His fingers hurt. Don't they. He curls them back, pulse throbbing in the heart of his palm: _Margo_, it is thinking: far away, blank-enfolding; _Quentin_. Eliot takes a breath, and puts his hand back safe in his pocket to warm up.

"You were almost grown up," Rachel says, quiet; and Eliot looks over.

_Almost_, he thinks. He shouldn't say it, should he. He should—

"Almost," he says, "but not quite."

She shakes her head. "No," she says, "I mean—"

She stops. Hugging her arms over her chest, looking—

"El, when I left, I had—nothing." She takes a breath. "If I'd had—more brains, or less pride, I would've—gone straight to Skokie, and knocked on my family's door, and—and if I'd asked, I would've gotten—a twelve-hour lecture, probably, but at the end of it, they would've mobilized every person they'd ever met, to—to keep us safe." She swallows, mouth twisting. "But—but I didn't have the brains," she says, rough, "and I—have always had. Exactly too much pride, at—exactly the wrong times." She shakes her head. "And you," she says, quiet, "were almost, but not quite, eighteen": and Eliot lets out a breath.

Slow.

"You thought he'd come after you for kidnapping," he says, quiet.

"I know he would've," she says. "He told me he would. Several times": and Eliot—

—rubs at his face. Nodding.

"I—I thought—maybe," he says, quiet. "I wondered, anyway"; and she—shifts, again.

"The thing was," she says, then—hesitates. "The thing was—": the pale moon of her face turning towards him, tipped up. "If _I_ left," she says, very low, "and I—_didn't_ take you. That summer. Then—in April, you'd be—your own man": comedy in three words, honestly— "and _then_," she says, "then if I _asked_ you to come, and—and if you had a _place_ to come," she says: thick. "If—you came _then_, and finished the year at Middletown, then—then everything would be ready," she says, "for you to—to start at Purchase."

Eliot breathes. Breathes. He can't—

—make it make sense, at first, except—

—except nothing, he is thinking, has ever made more sense in his life, because when Eliot—then seventeen and some little spare change—had rolled into a sunny, already manure-fragrant classroom at Whiteland High at seven fifty-four on a beautiful spring Saturday in early May, he'd been—well, still drunk, a little bit; and also—showing off, for—well, for Taylor, honestly: who'd been—not _like_ him, was he: it was fun, sure, for Taylor, like—roller coasters, or skateboarding wasted, or something; they'd always liked—fucking around together, hadn't they, and this was just—another cheap thrill, for him, wasn't it; another little shared hit of danger, heady and sweet—but it didn't—count, did it, because—well, _Taylor_. Because Taylor, Eliot knew, was just playing around. But, well—in the preceding twelve years Taylor'd never thrown a double-dog-dare at Eliot that Eliot _hadn't_ leapt for, not in—the entire time they'd known each other; and so that Thursday Taylor'd said, _No way do you show up_ and Eliot'd said, _I will_, so Taylor'd said, _Bet you don't_, and Eliot had raised an eyebrow and said, _What'll you give me if I do?_; and Eliot—of course had always hated to lose a bet, so he—_did_ turn up, he even—took it seriously, sort of; or at least—seriously enough: which was how Eliot got (a) to give his first blowjob, and also, (b), by _accident_, a 2110 on his SATs. And _God_: the way Eliot had felt, looking at that number, his heart thumping in—every end of his every fingertip, in the top of his throat: like—his _skin_ had come unraveled; and also gravity had stopped working; and then the room had filled to the ceiling with salt water; and then—someone had tossed him a rubber duckie attached to a single, mile-long strand of dental floss, and told him to pull himself out—; and then—and _then_: then there had been. The way he had felt as—as his mom had looked at him with—those odd, unreadable brown eyes, when she'd asked him, very hesitantly, _Do you_ want _to go to college?_: which was—a fair question, with his dreadful attendance record and his C+ GPA, and one that he hadn't known how to answer except honestly: _Yes_, he had told her, voice cracking: _but—not anywhere that cares about my f—frosted SATs_. He'd felt—blown apart, that afternoon, in her kitchen: shattered, looking at—her steady, familiar unreadable face as he'd found—this _well_, of words inside of him: all these words he hadn't—even known he was _thinking_, about—the one thing he was good at, the only thing he loved: the opportunity to—to put on someone else, with everyone else; and—and _become_. _2110_, he'd been seeing: which was—a 660 on the writing because not even he could expect miracles but—but a 690 on the reading, _Christ_, what—unknown fucking stars must've fucking aligned for _that_ one and—and then—then that fucking _math_ score, Jesus: and Eliot could already imagine every teacher and counselor in the school congratulating him, on Monday: shaking his hand, scolding him about his _potential_, pulling him aside to talk to him seriously about—his _future_, and Eliot knew that—that the only person, the _only_ person, who could understand, really, what a fucking disaster this _actually was_ was sitting—right in front of him. Wasn't she. So Eliot—Eliot had just—let it all pour out. All of it. Everything: everything the guidance counsellor had told him, last fall, everything he'd read online, all the research he'd done—quietly, at a library computer whose screen faced the back wall—about auditions (laughable) and tuition (impossible), about the three letters of recommendation he'd already been—spontaneously offered, very quietly, by Mrs. Dunkley (drama) and Mrs. Woodrow (music) and Mademoiselle-and-or-Señorita Chauncey (he was taking AP French from her, now; as well as second-year Spanish), and how long would it take, honestly, before _any_ of it got back to—to the farm? And then—and _then_. And _then_. And while Eliot just—vomited it all up (shaky, trembling), Rachel had sat up straight and listened, looking at him with that—odd, uninterpretable two-places-at-once expression; and then she had said one word: 

_Okay_, she had said.

"I didn't even _apply_ to college," he croaks; and then—

—puts his hands over his face.

"Ms. Montalvo," he says, scratchy-thick: the plump, determined woman who had been his first-grade teacher, who also did what the school euphemistically called "reading remediation" with some of the short-bus-punchline older kids, which—which Eliot had always been cringingly, cowardly afraid of anyone realizing included him: a decade plus of struggling with going cross-eyed every time he fucking _looked_ at a book—but Ms. Montalvo had known him, hadn't she; and she'd known Miss Chauncey; and she'd known _Eliot's mom_: she'd been _friends_ with his mom; and then—July happened, and the kitchen was—empty. Hollowed out. And for the next six months, Ms. Montalvo had kept trying to stop Eliot long enough for even half a conversation, hadn't she: in the corridors at school; by the store-brand Lucky Charms at the Kroger; and Eliot had just kept.

Wriggling away.

"You sent her after me," he says. Unsteady. "Didn't you."

"I thought you'd listen to her," Rachel says softly; and then—shifts. Sighs; when Eliot laughs.

"And then," she says, voice brisk, "when Craig died, I thought—well, okay. That's—a second chance, maybe, if—"

She stops.

"If I could just convince you to come with me," she says, quiet: and Eliot bends his head, blinking. Blinking.

"That year," he says. Rough: his lost year. He looks up, still blinking: his vision— "You made me—re-enroll. In Middletown": and she nods. He swallows. "But _why?_" he asks. "Just so I—could _audition_? They do auditions—_all over_, I could've auditioned in—"

"So you would graduate from a New York high school, Eliot," she says, low and flat; and he—

—laughs. Stunned. "So I—"

"_Eliot_," she says: exasperated. "Would you just—stop pretending to be an idiot, for twenty fucking seconds?" Which is—unfair, because Eliot—clearly _is_ an idiot, since he can't—pull it all together: frantically grasping at—at his mom leaving, the summer after junior year, and his miserable arctic senior-year fall; about that call, halfway through—God, _Spanish_, of all classes: that Eliot needed to come to the hospital, because—it'd been a heart attack: a congenital condition exacerbated by years of gravy and fruitless, toxically masculine rage; but after, Eliot'd told everyone it'd been spite. Everyone had come to him with—those faces: sympathy, sadness; but _Eliot_: Eliot hadn't had—any kind of feeling at all. He'd felt—hollowed out, empty; so light he might float away; and then—then Eliot was just—adrift: sliding aimlessly through a world like slowly-solidifying concrete, but then—then his mom was there again, for some reason: having conversations Eliot swayed in and out of where she sat with him at the lawyers' and the agent's and at the—the fucking funeral: alternately an irresistible force and an immovable object, quietly telling everyone that she wasn't moving back, that she'd just come to help Eliot—_manage things_: as though Eliot had—absurd—been capable of managing anything at all. And then—then. Then there was that drive: in her tiny bright-blue Honda Fit—still pretty gently used, at that point—with a radio that'd played oldies, classical, R&B, the news: fucking _anything_ but country as the windows fogged up as they crossed state line, after state line, after state line. And then. That fugue. The fog of—new classes, new people, new school, and—his miserable fucking report card, and the brown stain on his cracking ceiling; the haze of summer school, so he could actually graduate, even though—why bother? he'd thought: he is thinking. He'd thought: what was the fucking point? But then—then that night, the night his mom had come home, late in July: one year, to the day, after she had left him; and she had set a half-dozen pamphlets and brochures and printouts on the card table where they ate TV dinners and store-brand frozen pizza and said: _I talked to the head of the program. You can't transfer program credits, but you can transfer GEs, and SUNY Orange starts in two weeks_. 

"I could pull—a lot of cheap tricks out, couldn't I," Rachel tells him, on his fire escape: her mouth set, eyes tight; "to fudge at the edges of—of your paperwork, and the past, and—_reality_, but—there was the money from the farm, wasn't there, and then there was _out-of-state tuition_, which would've required—a goddamned miracle. Not—"

She stops. Hugging herself; face twisted and lined.

"Not my kind," she says, "of slight-of-hand."

Eliot feels like—the earth is tipping; swaying, lopsided, beneath his feet. _Out-of-state tuition_, he thinks, remembering—that fucking twenty thousand dollar extra, that they expected him to come up with, from fucking—_Indiana_; at the same time he's remembering—that scholarship: two thousand dollars a semester, from some fucking—fraternal organization he'd never heard of, had he, except—they said they'd got—a letter of recommendation, an application in his name; and it'd made—the difference, hadn't it: between—being able to pay for in-state tuition, just barely; and the both of them being able to breathe.

"Mom," he manages, somehow. "What—what did you _do_?"

And Rachel—looks at him; and then—takes a huge, deep breath; and says, "I lied."

Eliot's heart thumps. Once. Twice—

"You—"

"I _lied_, Eliot," she repeats: voice flat. Shoulders set. "I lied, and I lied, and then I lied some more—I lied to a whole bunch of people, about a whole bunch of things—I told them we'd had a long custody battle—'for years!": her face screwing up, wounded and fragile; "'oh, it was—awful!'" and until that moment, very precisely, Eliot never would've said his mom would've even made a halfway decent actress at all. "I lied over, and over, and over again," she says. "I said that it'd never made it to the courts because I didn't have any money, because he was hunting you, because he was a drug addict, because he was a banker from Paris trying to take you away on his private jet: I told them whatever lie seemed the most expedient and then—then I cried a lot," she says, voice unsteady: twisting, like her mouth. "I cried, over and over, on cue, in a lot of people's offices, until they all agreed that of course you were a New York resident, clearly you'd _always_ been a New York resident, just look at your New York high school diploma, look at my three-year lease in this building owned by my sister's college friend's wife's second cousin once removed: I lied however I needed to for as long as I needed to to make them believe me and agree with me and _sign off on your fucking residency_ and it wasn't even that _hard_, Eliot": she throws up her hands. "Because people like to believe sad, beautiful women when they cry at them, it's _easy_ for them, it's—the way they can just—go back to underestimating them again, after": her voice heavy with scorn; "and I'd've done a lot more than make myself look like an idiot," she tells him, "to get you—_here_": and she laughs, a wild, sudden, snarling-animal sound. "Here, Eliot": pointing at his kitchen's back door: "here, and _safe_, and—and _happy_," as her voice cracks; and she squeezes her eyes shut tight. Tears welling up, and trickling over: one, two; before she ducks her head, wiping impatiently at her face. "Today," she says, "here," rough, "with them."

When she blinks—turning her face up, cheeks flushed. With her—her eyes just. Burning through him: looking—at him, with a tiny, rock-steady part of herself; and the rest of her looking—_through_ him, and seeing—

—seeing, Eliot realizes—

What comes next.

She takes a breath. Straightening. Shoulders up, and back.

"Also," she says, like—an afterthought; and then clears her throat. Turning, just a little, so she isn't looking at him. "I sort of—got, um." Breathing in, deep: "A cousin of mine," she explains, finally. "To, uh—grease the wheels, a little bit."

He swallows. "A bribe?" he asks; because it—makes sense, but—

"_No_, _Eliot_," Rachel snaps, looking up, her dark eyes blazing: "_Magic_. Like your cigarettes. Like your clock. Like that wall in the middle of your apartment that is _obviously not actually a wall_—" which—wait; as his mom spreads her hands. "I spent two years in that miserable pit of an apartment, eating everything discounted because it was not-quite-expired and scrambling to pay our _rent_," she says, half-crying, "where the hell would I've come up with enough money to pay a _bribe_?"

And Eliot—

—can't do anything but—stare at her. Feeling— "Your cousin," he repeats; and she laughs: raw; "Never mind," he says: swallowing, half faint, still—dazed, just—_stunned_: to know that Rachel—_Rachel_, of all people—would've gone so far as—_that_: to—God, she must've—been reaching out into, into a world she'd never known and the family she couldn't face: rearranging—her entire adult life, with the express purpose of _conning the State of New York into discounting Eliot's tuition_, just because—because one sunny, treacherous day in the spring, every door and porthole and window in his world had opened all at once, and let in the sea. That this woman, this little, quiet woman who he'd thought—he'd thought he'd measured her up, hadn't he; he'd thought he'd measured her, and tagged her and filed her, so that he could safely set her aside: but—

—but she had also been—this other person, too.

For all that time.

He finishes his cigarette. "Do you want to come to dinner with us?" he says. "It's New Year's."

She blinks.

"It's at—um, we have a reservation at Longman & Eagle," he says, "it's nice. They have a Michelin star, actually, so—good food. Great drinks. And—I mean," he adds, "the reservation is for four, anyway, so—" 

He feels—itchy. Uncomfortable: because he's always _hated_ lying to his mom—

"...Is it?" she asks, squinting; and Eliot rubs at his forehead.

"It will be, in about fifteen seconds?" he tries; and she—stares at him. With—that same blank, shocked-out-of-herself expression—

—that he—recognizes, doesn't he. From the inside.

She straightens. "Do you want to meet your grandmother?" she asks; and Eliot blurts out, "Oh, God, _desperately_"; and Rachel—

—laughs. 

That big, round laugh: that new laugh, he is thinking; that laugh—that Quentin brings out in her: Quentin, he thinks, and Margo, and—and him. It must've been—hidden inside her, wasn't it.

When he thought he knew her, before.

"Yeah, El," Rachel says. Looking up at him: her dark, sparkling eyes. "I would love to have New Year's dinner with you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "some doorstopper tragicomedy of manners" - I mean, maybe, but probably, tbh, Quentin got it from _Anne of Green Gables_.


	10. (an interlude.)

### (an interlude.)

#### Sunday, December 31, 2017  
[nearing midnight.]

Later, what Eliot will remember, mostly, about that dinner, is—

—the lights: candles wavering; and—

Well. _Laughter_.

A cliché, he thinks: smoking out front while the rest of them are still safely ensconced in the warmth inside: Margo touching up her makeup in the bathroom while Rachel watches, probably, and they both commit gross acts of slander against Eliot's person; and Quentin—helpful and adorable, pink from the wine—stands outside the women's restroom, or whatever. Holding their coats.

Eliot takes a drag. He should quit, probably. Then—he could stand inside with Quentin, couldn't he? Get kicked out of a Michelin-starred restaurant, maybe, if he gave it a try. Another drag: sharp, delicious. He _should_ quit, really, but—it's not going to happen tonight, is it? Best—to be realistic about these things, honestly.

Eliot regards the last third of his cigarette; then stubs it out. Straightens up, sighing: he's not—it's not like he's going to try to quit, tonight. It'd—end terribly, wouldn't it, if he did—

—but just then, the rest of him is coming out of the restaurant: a burst of heat and laughter—

(Laughter, again: Eliot tucks his hands in his pockets; then pulls one out to wrap around Margo's shoulders instead, to give her a quick squeeze. It's still a cliché.)

"Mnnh—" Her path an arc curving towards them, Rachel pushes her hair back, fruitlessly: she's very flushed. "Oh, God, you all make me feel—older than I am, I think, actually," she says: laughing, fanning herself; as Margo pulls away from Eliot, to dig her phone out of her bag: his side going cold as Quentin leans in towards Rachel, to kiss one red cheek. She clicks her tongue, eyebrows creasing; and then—cups his face: that warm soft look that she keeps turning on Quentin—

—right before she turns it towards Eliot.

Close. He can—_feel_ her, almost: a banked fire, burning before him. Giving off heat. Her hair is still falling into her face. 

Eliot reaches over. He tucks a curl back, gentle; and then—smelling Rit dye; beeswax—he charms it, very carefully, to stay in place.

Rachel—just looks up at him. Dark-eyed. Smiling: as Eliot tastes clover, and wood shavings, and honey: almost like—

—like Drambuie, he thinks, or lighter fluid; and matches.

"Google says twelve minutes, right now," Margo says; as Quentin leans over her shoulder. "And—it's not even ten, quite, so—are we just—"

"We can't stay out here, if you're wearing that," Quentin says. 

"Yeah, but I mean, not all of us are total dicks about a little weather," Margo says. "I'm not going to shrivel up into a limp flop of slightly-dehydrated oyster just because it's a little chilly and I'm outside in a sequined minidress and heels."

"_A little chilly_?" Quentin protests; "It's like—twenty degrees out. I'm wearing pants and wool socks and I'm still not interested in standing around on the sidewalk—"

"—plus it'll ruin your shoes—"

"—plus it'll—well, who cares," Quentin corrects, dismissive; so Margo takes a visibly deep breath to start explaining why he _should_ care, those are _the only decent footwear he owns_—; and Eliot—

—laughs, a little. Turning, just, to squint down at Rachel.

"We were going to go out," Eliot explains. "If that's okay? Like—to this, uh, it's—a queer dance party," he explains: resisting, with some difficulty, the urge to hug his arms across his chest; as just beside them Quentin and Margo are both. Falling quiet. His two other corners, paying—_attention_: as Eliot says, "But I feel kind of bad about—just abandoning you," to Rachel, very awkwardly. "On New Year's."

And—her smile. Just. _Widens_: so bright. 

"I'm a big girl, Eliot, I don't need babysitting," Rachel says. "And—I don't dance, and—one date with a woman was enough for me, so—"

"One d—wait, _what_?" Eliot asks, flabbergasted; as Quentin and Margo both start cackling. 

"Well—it seemed like it'd be easier," Rachel explains, face earnest, "if I were a lesbian, and—I was living in Seattle, so—": and then—Eliot doesn't hear, really, what she says after that over the massive, howling roar in his ears.

"Oh, man, I wish I'd put _money_ on that," Margo gasps, after a second; as Quentin, face red, still giggling, is shuffling over, so he can reach up to cup Eliot's face, meet his eyes: worried and still laughing but _worried_: tender, checking in. So Eliot—puts his hand around Quentin's wrist, squeezing: feeling—anchored. Anchored. Fixed, at last: Quentin's whole—warm solid little body. A tether. A safety cord; as beside them, Margo accepts a pocket Kleenex from Rachel, still snickering; and dabs carefully at the corners of her eyes.

A thumb, on Eliot's cheek: Quentin. Asking, wordlessly, _Okay?_: even while he's still—very obviously—_laughing_ at him; and—Jesus Christ, Eliot loves him so much sometimes it feels _too fucking big_ for him. Just—overflowing, constantly, the edges of Eliot's own fragile, undersized skin: Quentin, looking up at him and laughing at him and worrying about him and—and _loving him back_; and his heart a tight white-hot ember in his chest, Eliot nods, and ducks down, for an instant, to kiss the edge of Quentin's pink face.

And then—

Eliot straightens. Sliding an arm around Quentin's shoulders, holding him up, as Quentin wraps an arm around his middle. "_Are_ you a lesbian?" Eliot asks, careful: voice light. Still feeling like—like the ground just disintegrated, right under his feet, but—Quentin has him; opposite Margo, to spot them both; so—shoulders back. Spine straight. Eliot knows how to deliver a line: "Because I know a _lot_ of lesbians," he explains. Marshaling himself: a performance, a comedy routine, to say it as earnestly as he can: "Seriously, I like—I could _yenta_ lesbians," Eliot says, even though—that's wrong, he thinks, probably; and then he pauses, very deliberate, before asking, "—am I using that word right?"

"Not even remotely," Rachel says, very fondly; and then reaches up, to touch Eliot's cheek. Even with—with Quentin still tucked in, warm and solid, just under Eliot's chin. Holding him up. Holding him up. "And I'm very sorry to tell you that I am not a lesbian," Rachel tells Eliot: her eyes dark; laughing, a little, and warm, as she finishes, "_unfortunately_": and then—

—reaches up. Squeezes Eliot's shoulder, once; and then—pulling back—just-pats Quentin's forearm: tucked in, warm and protective, around Eliot's hollow waist.

"Oh, well," Eliot says; and then—

—swallows. 

"I guess I, you know, still love and support you," Eliot says. Clumsy. Tongue thick. "Whatever—bizarre freakish lifestyle choices you make": and—

—as Rachel meets his eyes.

"I mean, it seems—only fair," Eliot explains, voice rough; and then. 

Clears his throat.

She's looking up at him, so—he shrugs. Trying not to look down at Quentin or think about his arm around Eliot's hollow middle or—or meet Margo's sharp hawk's eyes, not three feet away, _watching_ him; glinting like the light-dark-light feather-scales of her dress under the streetlights, because—

—because—he's had a lot of wine, that's all; and—and it will definitely make him cry.

"Thank you," Rachel says, after a minute. Her voice low. Freighted. "That. Means a lot to me."

"Jesus, you're going to make me ruin my makeup," Eliot mutters, and then pulls—away, just for second: Quentin's hand brushing, once, against the small of his back as Eliot says, "come here," throat sore: Quentin behind him, in case—but—but Eliot is leaning down to give Rachel a tight, fierce hug, like—like he hasn't, not in _years_: and—and meeting her. With. With the whole of him. One single impossible moment of reaching out to her and, improbably, finding the warm incontrovertible pressure of her arms: ferocious, tight around him. A surprise. All of it. All of it: the—the break in the snow, and the just-warming wind; _surprising_: to be in Chicago on the last night of the year with Quentin and Margo just beside him while Eliot's mother hugs him tight-tight-tight around the middle, and he breathes in the cheap-familiar-home smell of the long tangled veil of her hair.

Against his chest, Rachel takes a breath. Another. Another. Laughing, a little, as they pull—back, apart; and Rachel, straightening—digs out another pocket Kleenex, to wipe at her face: "It's—freezing, God," she says, scratchy; and then—laughs again. "I'd better—how far is the apartment?" 

"Um," Eliot says. Clears his throat. "It's—not," he says, "but I'm still putting you in a Lyft"; then turns: "Um. Q, can I borrow—did you bring—"

"My—oh, yeah, hold on." Quentin yanks a glove off with his teeth—_animal_—so he can find them, buried under—all the random crap that gravitates to the huge, unsightly pockets of his coat; as Margo shifts towards Eliot, and rests her hand, gentle, steadying: in place of Quentin's, on his back. Eliot slides an arm around her shoulders, tucking her in, as Quentin passes Rachel his keys; and Margo—just rests. Her head against him; and says—none of the things. 

That she could say.

"Oh," Rachel is saying, "are you sure that—"

"It's not like I need them," Quentin explains. "Eliot will be with me."

"Oh," Rachel says, "right"; then— "Thanks, Q": the syllable a warm, soft prickling wave, running the right way down the middle of Eliot's back, until—until it meets. Margo's hand. And then—_opening_, _foundation_, he thinks: nonsense, of course. Holding Margo as they watch Rachel hug Quentin, then turn: their circle blooming wide, as Rachel reaches for Margo, as Margo squeezes her back, quick and tight. And then—_invitation_, Eliot is thinking, in spite of himself, as Margo pulls back to gives them the room for the kind of half-awkward one-armed embrace they've always had: a misused metaphor, he reminds himself. Clumsy. Trite. 

Still.

Pulling back, Rachel is saying, "Be safe, okay?" Her mouth—curving, in—in that painful-embarrassing hot downturned curve—; and "_Mom_," Eliot can hear himself protesting: God, he sounds. _Seventeen_, but he's still—fucking saying— "We're going to—a dance party, not—_Afghanistan_, or something": his face hot and embarrassed, as next to him Quentin—steady, reliable—has already got his phone out, to order a Lyft. 

Rachel's smiling. Eliot takes a breath. Another, as Margo touches his back: "Be safe anyway," Rachel tells him, beaming—up, "and—have fun."

So.

So they do: _maternal orders_, Eliot thinks, once, very briefly, when he's buying their first round of cocktails—and then Eliot just—lets it go: just another warm, buoyant thought, bobbing above him, on the lightest of strings. It's New Year's. A new start: he's got Margo for six more days and Quentin for two and a half whole weeks; and he doesn't have to go to work tomorrow; and he's dancing: with Margo, because he wants to; with Quentin because he can: because he can hold him close and kiss him open-mouthed and grind on him with their bodies sandwiched body to body in a sea of other people where no one fucking cares, except—except for Margo, who keeps yelling super obnoxious stage directions over the blare of the music, while Quentin flips her off; or, like, the guy in the white A-frame and gold hot pants who bought Quentin a shot, then saluted Eliot with it, from the bar. So Eliot dances; he dances with Quentin; he dances with the guy in gold hot pants; he dances with Margo because _Margo_ can actually _dance_, _Quentin_; he dances with the guy in gold hot pants _and_ Margo _and_ Quentin; he pours Quentin into a booth with a giant glass of water and he dances with a boy he doesn't know; with Kieran, briefly; with Kieran's ex-wife; with three new friends; with Margo, and then with Margo and two _very_ hot girls in catsuits just long enough that it seems like he's probably just getting in the way; he dances with a bear in line at the bar and two butch lesbians waiting for the all-gender bathroom and he dances with three Latinx kids who are probably there breaking curfew, on fake IDs; and he waltzes with a drag queen with stunning green eyes and killer heels because no one else, apparently, _knows how to treat a lady_; he rests in the booth for a while with Quentin gnawing gently on his neck and he gets a little handsy and then he gets back into line for more drinks and then he goes back out tugging Quentin by the hand and out in the sea of light and sound and body heat he dances with Margo and Quentin, Quentin and Margo, Margo and Quentin: all three of them melting together into a sweaty, boozy knot, laughing helplessly while they sing along to "Boys" with their arms around each other because—because everyone else on the dancefloor is, too: golden, phosphorescent and throbbing, light coming out everywhere, Eliot thinks: from everyone, from just under their skin.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/interlude)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/interlude)

[Golden, phosphorescent and throbbing, light coming out from everyone, from just under their skin.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/interlude)

After, at their table—panting, half-collapsed—Margo chugs half her cranberry-cucumber martini and then immediately slinks out after the girls in the catsuits again: her very clearly very willing warm prey; while against Eliot's shoulder, Quentin is halfway to whining, face pressed in against Eliot's crumpled-damp shirt: shoulders tight and trembling, a little, as though—as though he is being—pressed back, back, _back_ by that music-heat-bodies-breath-booze-sweaty-smelling _wall_, just past the edge of the booth—: and so Eliot wets his finger, and draws a mark on the table; and a little—bubble. From Eliot's hands: it _blooms_, opening up around them; and—it doesn't make it _quiet_, exactly. Just _less_.

Quentin sighs. Slumping: "God," he says: unsteady; heartfelt, and rough. 

"Yeah?" Eliot asks, tilting his chin, to look down. He tucks that dumb little flip of hair back, feeling—tenderized, holes all over: Quentin doesn't—notice, always, does he: when he's getting overwhelmed.

Quentin nods. Says, "_Thank_ you," and then—

—he tips his mouth up.

A minute or two later, they both jump: the music surging back in, as one of the security guards—a tiny, busty woman with a shaved head and bright red lipstick—tells them, "Hey—PG-13 in the booths, okay?"

Quentin curves down to bury his face against Eliot's shoulder, hot.

"Yes—yeah, of course." Eliot nods and nods; then clears his throat, "And—er, the bathrooms are..."

She laughs, loud and ungainly, then tells him, "Hey, the bathrooms aren't on _my_ rotation—but it's cold out there, and Victor's a creampuff, so—he'd cry, you know, the whole time he was throwing you out into the snow": and Eliot—loves her a little, he thinks, for that. 

"Noted," he says. "PG-13 in the booths, and don't make Victor cry": and she grins at him; the sound dimming again, as she pulls back to go off and interrupt someone else.

Eliot tucks his chin, looking down at Quentin. "I think you can move your hand," Eliot suggests; and Quentin mumbles, "Can't, dying of embarrassment, BRB": spells it out and everything, _bee are bee_. Eliot's heart feels like a sun collapsing, at the center of his chest.

He nuzzles Quentin's cheek. His jaw. His—mouth, because Quentin—is _not_ dying of embarrassment enough that he—can't lift his chin up again, kiss Eliot—fervently, hungrily, _predictably_: and then Eliot, after a moment, very gently, slides Quentin's hand off his fly. 

"We're not getting kicked out," Eliot reminds him. "We're having fun, with Margo, so—we're not getting kicked out tonight"; and Quentin's expression shifts.

"Not if we layer that with—"

"I kind of can't believe I'm saying this," Eliot interrupts. "But no, Quentin, I am not going to fuck you behind a permeable spell barrier, out in the open, in the middle of a _two thousand person queer dance party_, in Chicago, on New Year's Eve."

"The thrill is gone," Quentin tells him, voice serious: a dimple just-threatening on each side: creasing his lovely flushed cheeks.

"I know," Eliot agrees. "It's a tragedy for the ages"; and then—

—he swallows.

"I mean," he says, light. "There you were, thinking it'd be forever, nearly—almost two years ago": a barbed little weight in Eliot's throat. "And now here we are," Eliot says. His mouth—doing something like smiling, he thinks; as he says, "Not too late, you know, to change your mind"; and Quentin—

—sighs, very theatrically, and rolls his eyes.

"You are such a drama queen," he says. Shifting around: off Eliot's lap, mostly, so instead he can curl up in the booth, warm and pliable against Eliot's side. "Honestly," Quentin says, "no one who can make me, you know—forget that their _mom's_ there, just—the other side of an apparently not very convincing illusion—"

(—_there aren't any baseboards_, Rachel had explained, at dinner; while Margo had howled with laughter, and Eliot had buried his face in his hands—)

"—really has just. _Any_ ground to stand on," Quentin says: snuggling in. "When it comes to being anxious about, like, whether or not you hit it right, or whatever."

Eliot swallows. Puts his arm around him, as Quentin cuddles closer.

"It's not that," Eliot admits. "It's more—." 

He stops. Drumming his right hand on the table, as Quentin's shoulder fits, just so, into the left.

"What you said earlier," Eliot says. "About—telling your dad. That you wanted... I mean, it's just. You decided so _fast_, baby. And I—"

He takes a breath.

"And I—I'm pretty fucking selfish," he admits, "but—I don't want you to feel—stuck, or something. Because of."

Breathing in.

"Some—idle thought you had," Eliot says, rough. "When you were twenty-three."

After a second, Quentin.

Shifts. 

"How long did it take you, really?" he asks.

Sliding up onto his hip, tucking a foot underneath him so he can look—right at Eliot. Eyes sharp. 

"Like—how long did it _really_ take you, really-really," Quentin asks. "Like—_inside_ you, not—not the answer you think would make it—morally okay, or whatever." 

Eliot swallows, while Quentin watches; and then Quentin—sighs, and rubs a hand over his face. 

"I mean—you actually don't have to tell me or anything, I just—" Quentin shrugs, a little; eyes sliding away. "It's like—yes, okay, fine: three months in, or two weeks in, or—whatever, I thought—something that _I still think now_, and yes, okay, fine, maybe the odds were good, back then, that it wouldn't've turned out to be—real, or whatever, but—I mean, it _did_, didn't it?" he asks; and then. 

Stops. 

"I mean—for me," Quentin says, "I—"

"It did," Eliot says, rough; and Quentin.

Lets out a breath.

"So," he says; and Eliot.

Reaches over. Touching—his wrist, his elbow; and then Quentin sighs, and sidles back over. Hip to hip.

Eliot tightens his arm around Quentin's shoulders. Squeezing; as he takes a breath.

"When you say—how long did it take," Eliot says. Rough; and Quentin shifts.

"El—"

"No, I just—do you mean—the first time I thought it," Eliot asks, wishing his throat felt. More normal: "or—the first time I thought it and then didn't immediately think: 'yeah, okay, but that's _crazy_'?"

"You don't have to tell me at all," Quentin repeats; but Eliot shakes his head. 

"No, I just—this isn't an easy question to answer," he explains. "Not—not for _me_, Q, because—it wasn't all one thing or the other, like—fantasies about—fucking you, or whatever—" (_yes, sure_, second-year Eliot inside him is thinking, back in the period when he was still masturbating furiously about Quentin's white socks in the shower: _fucking Q: yeah, yawn, sure,_ whatever—) "it wasn't like—I had that kind of fantasy, that—that all of a sudden turned into—those fantasies about the Park Slope apartment and brunch with a stroller," Eliot admits, shifting; because that had—come up, too. Hadn't it. For—for second-year Eliot, and his wet hair. He takes a breath. "It was more like—" 

He stops. Sighs, as Quentin hums, a little; and Eliot slides his hand up, to cup the back of Quentin's warm neck, as he tries, _tries_ to explain: "It was like—okay, here's this boy," he says, "and he's got a dumb name but it's written on my card, and ugh, I hate being—outside, and _bored_, and—and all of that, but—but here he is": helpless. "Here he is, stumbling across the lawn, looking like he got—dragged backwards through a bush and he's _definitely_ late for the exam, but—but it turns out he's also—you know, adorable": Quentin rolls his eyes, when Eliot looks down at him; but when has Eliot let that stop him, when he's saying something important? "_Adorable_," Eliot repeats, squeezing, "and also—exactly my type in this way I sort of. Didn't totally want to think about; and then—then he _also_ turned out to be—this sort of. Awkward, soft-touch disaster, who I felt kind of weirdly responsible for, which was also—"

"Your type—"

"My type, yes, to a T, but not like—my type in the way I'd ever've been... Ugh. _Self-aware_ enough, I guess, to describe my type to someone else." Eliot sighs. "Just—my type in the way where, like—okay," he says, detouring, "it's like—you go to the store for more milk and sandwich bread and it turns out they're out of milk, which sucks, because ew, dry cereal, and then also, not only are they out of your regular, inexpensive sandwich bread, and the sandwich bread you like better but don't usually buy because it's twice as expensive, they've actually replaced _all the sandwich bread in the entire store_ with—it's not even _bread_," Eliot says, helpless. "It's like—the one remaining extant model of your dream car, which was discontinued in 1967 and then all the remaining models were destroyed in a fire, but this store, this particular—Safeway, or whatever, they've got your dream car on sale for like—$12.99," he explains. Throat tight: he takes a breath. "But it's—thirty-six hours 'til payday," he says, "and you were just—going to buy some milk, so—so you're a little light, you only brought—the change you dug out of your sofa cushions, and you left your credit card at home, and—"

He shrugs. Feeling—

—tense, and awkward, and—

—and small.

Quentin's smiling at him. Chin tilted. "And even $12.99 feels like kind of a stretch?" he says, very gentle.

"Even $12.99 feels fucking—_impossible_," Eliot sighs; and then leans down. Pressing a hot, fervent kiss to Quentin's temple. 

"I'm not sure whether I should be honored I'm your dream car, in this metaphor, or offended that Safeway priced me at $12.99," Quentin says.

"No—you, _you're_ the Safeway," Eliot says, exasperated, "yes, okay, you're the car, but you are _also the Safeway_—"; and Quentin starts laughing; "—massively undervaluing yourself enough that—I could actually afford you, if I didn't show up with—twenty-seven nickels and—mm—": because Quentin has twisted up, kneeling on the seat next to him so he's halfway back into his lap, bending down to kiss him: warm, and soft, and sweet.

Eliot kisses him back, helpless. Just—kisses him, and _kisses_ him, and—

—kisses him.

Until.

Quentin pulls back. Just a little. He's breathing a little hard—well. 

So is Eliot. 

(_Victor_, Eliot reminds himself, _creampuff. Snow_. With. Some difficulty.)

Quentin licks his bottom lip. "If we could—set this _very_ convoluted metaphor aside, for a second," he says, and then he laughs, a little.

Breathless.

Eliot swallows. Nods. "That's. Probably for the best," he croaks; and Quentin—softens, visibly.

His mouth. The edges of his big, brown eyes. He touches Eliot's cheek. His thumb: petting. Gentle; and Eliot twists, just enough, to kiss the heart of his hand.

"You remember—before the first time I went to see Caleb?" Quentin asks, after a minute. "Or, like. When I was looking for him, I guess."

"Yeah," Eliot says. Quiet.

Quentin nods. "How many people in my life do you think have sat down with me and gone through the fucking—provider directory on my insurance's website and helped me make calls to see which of the therapists marked 'accepting new patients' is actually accepting new patients and which are just going to make me sit on hold for twelve minutes and then tell me to fuck off?"

Eliot shifts. "What," he says. "Is that... not a hot date?"

A dimple. "Just because it got _you_ laid," Quentin says; and then.

His mouth twists. Turns down.

"Two," he says. "Since—that wasn't actually a rhetorical question. Twice. Two people. That's all."

Eliot swallows. "I seem to recall." He takes a breath. "A fight or two about it, in there, somewhere."

"Yeah, most of which—quite frankly—I started," Quentin reminds him; and then sighs. "My point is—it was two, Eliot. You, and my dad. Like—he had to do it a bunch of times on his own when I was a kid, and then he sat down with me before I started at Columbia and showed me how to do it. But—that was it, Eliot. You, and him."

He rubs at his own face.

"Which does not, for the record, make me feel like _less_ of a freak, sexually speaking," Quentin notes; and Eliot kisses his knuckles. "But—my point is that you fucking—you cared enough to yell at me about it and you cared enough to _help_ me, too, and—and that _counts_, okay? That—"

He stops. Sighing; as he cups Eliot's cheeks.

"That _mattered_ to me," Quentin says. "It mattered to me, it _matters_ to me, that you—you were so fucking irritated with me, and you still fucking—did it anyway."

Eliot swallows. "I _could_ do it," he explains; and Quentin nods.

"Yeah," Quentin says. "It's a website and a telephone. It's not that hard. Lots of people could do it. But Eliot—_you_ actually _did_."

Eliot's heart: a slow, sea-swell steady thud. With—with _Quentin_, looking down at him—

Quentin touches the dip of Eliot's hollow throat.

"El, I know you think you showed up with nothing to offer," Quentin says. Low, and rough. "But since I've met you..." He stops. Takes a breath, then says, "Every moment I've been lost, you've found me. And you—you're just—fucking _relentless_, Christ, you just keep—pushing _towards_ me, you know? So that every time I've needed—something, _anything_, to make me feel _slightly_ less like an alien stranded, alone, on some—barren godforsaken rock—" 

Quentin stops. Sighs; and then waves a hand. His mouth twisting; as Eliot tightens his arm, around the little dip of Quentin's waist. 

"You were there with me, you know?" Quentin says. Unsteady. "And—it didn't matter if I was—scared, or confused, or worried, or—or _empty_, or _anything_, because—because you were there—_with_ me, and you always—_always_, Eliot—you _always_ found something to give."

Eliot swallows. Thick.

"I don't care if you fell in love with me all at once," Quentin says. "I don't care how you fell in love with me at all. Honestly, I don't _totally_ care if you _are_ in love with me, like—_in love with_ me, as opposed to just, like... a person who loves me—I mean, I don't care for _me_," he explains; Eliot can practically _hear_ the footnote: "though if you're not, I think we need to have a talk about really unnecessary levels of self-sacrifice but—but beyond just. What it means _for you_: it just doesn't _matter_, El, okay? You love me _best_ and you've loved me the _longest_, you _do_ it and you _chose_ it, you just _keep_ choosing it and choosing to do it, not—not being _in love with me_, just—_loving me_": Quentin's voice cracking, as his mouth twists up. He slides his hand down. Locking it, warm, around the back of Eliot's neck. 

"It's not a _state_, with you, is it," Quentin says, gravel-rough, dark-eyed. Squeezing. Quentin squeezing: as he says, "It's a _verb_."

And Eliot—

—breathes. 

In, he thinks. Reminding himself: out. 

_In_—

"I think—um." Eliot laughs, a little. Takes a breath. "So—I think I'm going to have to take a raincheck on your Solsti-yule-mas present," he manages, finally; and Quentin's brow wrinkles up.

"What?" he says. Sounding—deeply confused, which—

Is fair. 

So.

"I, uh." Eliot kisses his cheek, once: chest tight. "Margo told me—that I should get you something else. For Solsti-yule-mas, I mean, she didn't—she thinks it's. Fine, or whatever, just—that I shouldn't give it to you for Solsti-yule-mas. And—I'm a moron, so I didn't listen to her, but, um." He takes a breath. Squeezing Quentin, tight. "She was right," Eliot says. Thick. "Always is, which is—you know, _infuriating_, but. But she was right. I should've. Gotten you something else, for—I mean, I should've gotten you something—beautiful," he explains, "and—and useless."

"Oh," Quentin says, frowning. "I—I mean, I'm really not that picky, El, I—"

"It's not useless enough," Eliot interrupts. Looking up at—Quentin's eyes, those—huge lovely eyes, that never hide—anything. "I think maybe—I mean," Eliot manages, "I know": somehow. Somehow. He takes a breath. "It's not useless at all, Q," Eliot says; his voice as—as scraped-raw rough and exposed as—

—as the rest of him; as Quentin's eyes—

—shift. Settle, softening. Like his hand, on Eliot's neck.

"Oh," Quentin says, after a minute.

Very quiet.

Eliot nods. "Yeah." He laughs, a little. "So. Rain check?" he asks, "for Solsti-yule-mas, I mean": squinting at him, throat sore; and Quentin nods, silent; and Eliot nods, and looks—down, at his hand.

The right. 

It is resting, empty, on the the table. The left: arm still tucked, impossibly steady, around Quentin's warm waist, to leave his left hand cupping the perpetually coming-untucked hem of Quentin's only halfway-decent shirt, and—and warm air—

—not—

—not anything in a little velvet box, tucked inside Eliot's waistcoat pocket, which is—far too well-tailored, isn't it, to bulge.

"So." Eliot nods, a little. Swallowing. "Apropos of nothing." He laughs, a little. "How do you feel about big, elaborate marriage proposals?"

Quentin shifts. "...Honestly?" he asks, sounding—awkward: Christ, Eliot loves him.

"Honestly," Eliot confirms.

"Um." Quentin's throat bobs, expression twisting: "Unnecessary and kind of embarrassing?" he admits, looking—well. Constipated, mostly.

"Okay." Eliot nods. Reaching up, to tuck that dumb little flip of hair back again, as he asks, very quietly, "How about really simple but heartfelt ones," instead.

Quentin ducks his head. "Yeah," he says, scratchy, "except—that seems. Um, more like my style than yours, so—I mean." He squirms, a very little. "You could embarrass me a little bit." Face scrunched. "If you wanted."

Eliot touches—Q's warm cheek. His throat. "I'd rather you just said yes," Eliot says, quiet; and Quentin—

—smiles.

Dimples everywhere, as he meets Eliot's eyes. 

"El, I'm gonna say yes either way," Quentin says, voice round with laughter: in a way that, Eliot notes, rhymes, very obviously, with _you idiot_.

Eliot swallows. 

Nods; just as—

—beyond the edges of the bubble of their bodies, the music dims, barely: "Ten," booms the DJ, over the speakers, and the people on the dancefloor stop, joining in: "_nine_—"

"Okay," Eliot says, "so let's maybe—see if we can compromise": shifting them over to the edge of the booth, clumsy; _eight_, as Quentin, giggling, gets up and immediately winces, bumping his knee; so Eliot wraps an arm around his waist, sliding them out—_seven_—into the sea of bodies: holding him up holding Quentin up holding up—the heart of him: swaying. He's so warm. Out on the dancefloor, Eliot rubs their noses together: _six_—; Quentin looping his arms up around Eliot's neck: close and blurry, cheeks pink.

(_Five—_)

"Mm—" Quentin protests, "El—" as Eliot dips him back; "Shh, just let me have this one, okay?" Eliot asks: _four_. "Since m'gonna have to—cancel the skywriter and everything—" and Quentin starts laughing, loud and dorky, just about—very nearly—Eliot's very favorite thing—

"Hey," Eliot says, "Quentin. Baby": _three_—

"Mm-hm?" Quentin blinks, dark-eyed: _dimples_; as _two!_, shouts the world around them, and Eliot asks, "Will you marry me?"

His mouth—ready, already tasting it (—_one_—), even before Quentin says, smiling, "Oh, I mean—sure, why not, I don't—have anything else going on—": dissolving into laughter as the room explodes around them: sound and cheers and shouts of laughter, as Eliot breathes in through Quentin's mouth.

His whole body.

Buzzing. 

As they kiss. 

Eliot's skin. A hum, low and hot: a bubble to contain—the roar of the music, noisemakers, cheering, voices, all rising up for—_for this_, Eliot thinks, nonsensically: with their people everywhere around them, wetness running all down Eliot's sleeve as Margo yells at some asshole who doesn't know how to properly open a bottle of champagne: _Finally_, fucking _finally_: she's shouting, _Finally, you take my advice—_: right there, with them, _for_—the New Year, and—and for us, Eliot thinks, and—it _could_ be, couldn't it: all of it; it—might as well be, mightn't it: with glitter sticking to his eyelashes and confetti in his hair, the whole fucking world aligned with them with Margo at his back and Quentin in his arms: warm and solid and implausibly his; while everything around them showers them with fireworks for choosing to stay—right where they are: side by side, moving forward, _together_: exactly what Eliot has been wanting, for all this time.


	11. crowns.

### 10\. crowns.

#### Monday, January 1, 2018

"I do have a spell, you know," Margo says, "for hangovers."

"I'm not hungover," Eliot mutters; which is—

"The word for hungover is just '_second-day drunk_,' you know, in Japanese," Quentin murmurs, running a hand through Eliot's hair. "I have a flashcard"; and Eliot squints up at him.

"Didn't I _make_ that flashcard?" Eliot asks; and then has to close his eyes again, because—a lie, it was a lie; he is—_totally_ hungover, and—the lights on the L are piped in directly from hell, so—

Low, Rachel says, "Japanese?"

"Languages are big at our school," Margo explains.

Rachel hums. It's late afternoon, and surprisingly quiet—well, maybe; he doesn't know: it's a holiday. It's quiet enough, at least, that they've managed to lay claim to one of the pairs of double seats at the end of the car: Margo standing, mostly: leaning against Quentin's shoulder, or prowling over to the system map—she's always fidgety, after she gets laid—and neglecting the empty seat next to Rachel, with her back to the window, while Eliot and Quentin sit perpendicular to her—the less queasy-making seats, facing forward. Rachel says, "I'm not surprised. You know—Eliot won the French award, his junior year of high school," which is—true, except that he'd rather she didn't go into _how_— "He wrote a _poem_," she adds, with a certain amount of inevitable sadistic maternal relish.

"Oh my God, Mom," he mutters, putting a hand over the dark purple-yellow fireballs that were, at some point, his eyes.

She laughs, then tells Margo, "I failed French twice, but—I have it on good authority that it was a very good poem," very earnestly; and Margo says, "Hm, if he won an award for it, do you think the school still has a copy?"; and Quentin says, "Was it in the yearbook, or the literary magazine?"; and God, Eliot lied: he's not hungover, he's in hell.

"I burned all the copies," he tells them, from behind his hand.

"He's lying," Margo says, very decisively, "I know that tone of voice, so they _must_ still have copies—"

"I'm friendly with one of the school admins," Rachel says, thoughtful. "Let's see... Margaret Benson, Margaret Benson, I'm _sure_ I have her phone number in here _somewhere_": as against Eliot's throbbing head, Quentin starts giggling. 

"I'm so glad you all are supporting me in this difficult time," Eliot says, flat; and Quentin squeezes the back of his neck, gentle. It's—fine. Whatever. It's not like Whiteland High _had_ a literary magazine, so—he'd worry that baby pictures were next, but—where would she even _find_ any? 

Quentin scratches over Eliot's scalp. His heartbeat solid under Eliot's ear. "How are you _not_ hungover?" Eliot asks him, braving one eye open, sort of: his hand tilted to block out the worst of the light. "We had two bottles of champagne, and you drank like—an _ocean_ of—those little pink cocktails, and—at dinner I know we finished at _least_ four bottles of wine—"

"I'm pretty sure we finished five," Quentin admits, "but—Margo taught me her hangover spell, and—I _know_ I'm not cool, and I also don't have a bad-idea fetish that makes me emotionally invested in my ability to drink for nine hours straight with zero consequences the next day." 

It'd seem—mean, probably, except for his voice: teasing and soft; just as the train plummets into a grinding, swaying sort of a stop. Eliot takes a deep, steadying breath, wishing for—soda water, crackers, the sweet release of death.

"Wow, thanks," he says, a little unsteady. 

"That was a little harsh," Margo admits; and Eliot shakes his head, folding his hand back over his face.

"Also true." He takes a breath. "Whatever, fine, I know I'm not nineteen anymore—Q?"

Quentin touches Eliot's forehead, once, right at the start of the casting; and Eliot—

—breathes his way through it: smelling—burning juniper, and that nauseating heavy fermented-fruit over-richness, through the cracked-egg sensation, and the surge of heat and nausea, then the shivery fever-sweat feeling that washes over his entire body, scalp to toenails—: until Quentin cups his cheek, at the very end: smelling pepper-clove spicy and clean; his hand a solid anchor of coolness against Eliot's hot, clammy skin. 

When Eliot pulls himself up to sitting, still feeling—shaky, a little fragile, Rachel is turned slightly towards them, watching with another one of her complicated, hard-to-read expressions—but Eliot knows this one, doesn't he? he thinks; even before the corner of her mouth curls up.

"It's—neat," she says; and then laughs. Flushing. "It's interesting! I can't move my hands like that."

"Mm." Quentin shifts, glancing—up—. "You know—you probably could learn, if you wanted to."

Margo looks down at him. "You're with Quinn on this one?"

"It was more—Kady, actually, mostly," he admits; then says, to Rachel, "These friends of ours—Alice and Kady, they're both—uh, like. Activists, sort of? Or well—"

"They're quasi-anarchist librarians for radical social justice," Eliot explains, even though he's not really expecting that to help; but Rachel just tilts her head. 

"Oh," she says. "Actually, I think I know a few of those."

"Seattle?" Margo guesses; and Eliot looks up at her. Margo shrugs. "I spent some time out there," she says. "In my itinerant youth": which is code for _before I got my shit together and came back for college; but_ after _I got arrested in high school, and ran away_. "I would've stayed," Margo says, "but I couldn't handle the dress sense."

"But—what do, uh—radical social justice librarians have to do with learning magic?" Rachel asks; and all three of them—Margo, Eliot, and Quentin—simultaneously sigh; then look at each other; and laugh. 

"Sorry," Margo manages, eventually. "It's just—imagine every lecture you got from a really hardcore Bernie bro last year—uh, 2016, I mean—only it's _worse_, because you know it's never going to end, ever, and it doesn't matter if you're at _least_ 80% on their side and it wouldn't matter if that dude _died_—it wouldn't matter, even, if you _agreed with them completely_, they'd _still_ lecture you, for like forty-five minutes, on the Gospel of Bernie Sanders, when you desperately have to pee and are also late for class."

"I was not that bad," Quentin mutters; and Margo says, "You were pretty annoying, babe"; and Quentin cries, "I finally _voted_ for her, didn't I?"; so Margo reaches down to pat his cheek.

"The short version is: there's a group of magicians who thinks that anyone who sweats for it can learn magic, and another group who thinks that you have to have a certain quantifiable level of natural gift," Eliot explains to Rachel: _actually usefully_, he thinks, pointedly, at Margo. "And there are like nineteen sub-factions of each group, and they all get really up their own asses about the theory and philosophy of that as a question, when what it basically boils down to is how open to be with information; and who's allowed to know what; but also—how to keep people safe, and what 'keeping people safe' even _means_, when some of the knowledge you're talking about has to do with how to safely do things that can be really, really dangerous."

"Ah," Rachel says, and then laughs, a little. "Where have I heard that one before?"

"Yeah," Eliot says, wry; and then takes a breath. "Anyway, like—philosophy's great and all, but the _actual issue_ right now is that if you're credentialed, you automatically get a higher ration—"

"—which is elitist garbage," Quentin interjects; and Eliot nods. 

"Which is," he says, "elitist garbage. Like—the DMP—"

"DMV?" Rachel's brow furrows.

"Department of Magical Power," Margo clarifies.

"Ah."

Eliot nods. "So the DMP argues that the credentialing cap on rations is there to prevent untrained magicians from working something really dangerous, which might—_might_ make sense for the fast-draw rations—the rations we use when we're casting something that has a big, sudden draw of power—"

"Still not convinced," Margo says; and Eliot waves a hand. 

"No, I mean. Me neither," he admits. "But at least it's not the obvious bullshit it is for extended-draw rations." To Rachel, he explains, "It's not that extended-draw spells aren't dangerous, it's that extended-draw spells are like—the fundamental, basic day-to-day magical spells that all magicians use, all the time."

"Like, if you've got protective wards on your house," Quentin explains, "or you have a Library card, or you have a durable portal set up because your job requires you to commute off-world—all that stuff hits your extended-draw rations."

Eliot nods. "Or, say, illusion spells running down the middle of your apartment—"

"Just to take an example out of nowhere," Quentin says, smiling.

"Exactly," Eliot says, and squeezes his hand.

"Basically, all it functionally _means_, for Alice—that me and Eliot get more of a ration, just because we graduated—is that Alice can't live on Earth," Margo says. "She wouldn't be able to afford the portal connection, on a non-credentialed ration, and she not only has a Library card, she has a _Library employee ID_, which draws about ten _times_ as much."

Eliot nods. "Every time she comes for a visit, she has to cash in an extra half-day of vacation so that the Library will just pre-emptively pay her fine"; as Rachel's eyes widen.

"Or, like—Penny," Quentin adds; and Eliot shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling. "Our friend Penny didn't even want to come to Brakebills," Quentin is explaining, "except he's psychic, and he couldn't fully control it, so he kept getting ration fines _just for existing_": and Rachel's eyebrows nearly hit her hairline.

"Yeah," Margo says, voice flat. "It's really fucking bad. And—spoiler alert—a magical education's not free, so even if everyone had the time to spend, minimum, fourteen months in the certificate program, not everyone can afford it; and the financial aid comes with. Some _pret_-ty distasteful fine print." 

"Wow," Rachel says, flat. "What a shocker"; and Eliot gives a bleak sort of a laugh.

"Yeah," he says. Sighs. 

"So that," Quentin says, "is how our friends got involved in the push to provide free magical education via the Library"; and then does jazz hands. 

Rachel nods; and Eliot rubs at his face. "Well, this conversation's just—a New Year's delight, isn't it?" he says; and then sighs. "How did we we end up talking about politics, again, anyway? Whose fault is this? Was it you, Margo?": and Margo rolls her eyes.

"We all agree with each other, anyway," she mutters. 

"I think it was me, actually," Quentin admits. "But really I just meant—it's an open question, isn't it, how much of magic is something you're born with, and how much of it is something you learn, and how much of it is like—something that _happens_ to you."

Margo snorts. 

"One of our teachers—well, all of our teachers, really," Quentin corrects, ignoring her editorializing, "but—one of them in particular, this—he's a total jerk, but he's powerful, and he just—kept pounding and pounding and _pounding_ on this idea that—your magical talent was like... mercury, or something, only—instead of responding to temperature, it responded to how much you suffered." Quentin squirms, a little, the way he always does when Brakebills South comes up. "But—the place where Margo works, in Fillory—we went to this party there, over the summer, and I got to talking with one of the lecturers at the Maredda—"

Eliot looks up. "Wait, I don't remember this?"

"No, you weren't there, you were hitting on the king," Quentin says, waving it away. "Anyway—"

"What's a maredda?" Rachel asks.

"It's the consortium public education program that Fillory and Loria run together," Margo explains. "Their way around—exactly this problem, actually, it's—like, their national university, basically, and also this whole big diplomatic—ugh! Quentin! _stop talking about my job_."

"I'm not!" Quentin says, laughing. "I'm talking about Professor Chatwin—"

"Oh, _him_," Margo says, darkly.

"I liked him," Quentin protests, looking up.

"Of course you liked him," she sighs. "He basically worked at the DMV for eighty years and then retired to teach PA and remedial Lorian part-time, and now he gets invited to palace dinner parties and shows up with ink all over his sleeves and talks, at great length, about his morning meditative fishing practice, to whatever poor cursed Earth diplomat they sit next to him, because for some reason they think he's important—"

"He escaped the _Blitz_!" Quentin argues. "He was a _refugee_! He ran books during the revolution! His sister still—"

"The point, baby," Eliot reminds him; and Margo says, "The point is that Martin Chatwin is the most boring man alive," under her breath. Rachel has her elbow propped up against the windowsill, grinning, as she watches them.

"_The point_," Quentin says, ignoring Margo, "is that—look." He shifts forward in his seat. "Yeah, there are people who think—you have to be born with something extra, that makes you able to do magic," he says. "And fucking Mayakovsky is all about—suffering is the root of all power, blah blah blah. But _Professor Chatwin_ had this whole thing about, like—the difference between running fast because you come from seventeen generations of professional sprinters; and running fast because you trained for a year and got a good night's sleep and fueled up with a good, nutritious meal; and running because you're on fire."

"If you were on fire, what good would running do?" Eliot asks. Resting his arm over Quentin's shoulders.

"That was sort of his point?" Quentin says, turning his face up. "Like—you might run, just on instinct, trying to get away, but—it probably wouldn't do anything about how you were actually on fire."

Eliot swallows.

"Anyway," Quentin says, looking back at Rachel. "I keep—thinking about that, that's all. Like—" He takes a breath. "So—my great-great-grandfather, the guy who made the clock—he was a magician, right? But—it turns out he also wasn't, um. Biologically related to me": his cheeks turning, very faintly, pink. "And no one _else_ in my family is a magician. And I've definitely—been miserable enough, like, a lot of the time, not just when—when I wasn't. Taking care of myself, or when—my dad was dying, but—but a lot of the time, because my brain—breaks sometimes, but actually, that—it makes casting _harder_, you know?" Hunching, a little. Eliot rests his palm on the back of Quentin's neck; and voice scratchy, Quentin says, "But El and Margo get me through it."

"You get you through it," Eliot says, quiet; and Quentin looks up at him and says, "Yeah, but you—really, really help."

Eliot leans over. Kisses his temple.

"So," Quentin says, and then laughs, a little. Scrubbing his palms on his jeans. "I just mean—I think everything they beat into us about what makes you a magician is probably—pretty much bullshit, so." He takes a breath. "So if you wanted to learn, Rachel, I don't see why you couldn't."

Eliot looks at her. Thinking: Popper 4. Because—it's actually the easiest, he thinks, for beginners to get their heads around; and then you can do—that little fireworks spell, which is—just the kind of thing she'd like, isn't it? Bright, and beautiful, and useless—

"Mm, I think I'm okay without it, but thank you," Rachel says; and Eliot—stops: as eyes warm, she adds, "I think—I'd rather just sit back and watch you." 

Smiling.

Quentin shrugs. "Suit yourself," he says; and then—straightens. "Oh! Welters!"

Which—

Quentin's excitement over a sport as a topic is, to say the least, a surprise—that is, until Eliot comes to realize that Quentin both intends and is equipped to spend the entire rest of the hour-plus train ride (_including_ a connection) regaling Rachel with a series of stories about Eliot's manly prowess at, and historical triumphs during, games where Quentin was apparently panting over him in the stands and—and also apparently writing _very_ purple mental fanfiction, or something: stories which are, if not precisely _untrue_, at the very least heavily and slightly embarrassingly edited so as to make Eliot look like he was, like, the sports star of the school or something; and not just—a quarter, maybe, of the depth of skill on the Physical Kids bench, because the great tragedy of Margo rekindling the graduate program's love of welters is that—other than Margo and, okay, maybe him and also, very briefly, Kady—physical magicians tend to be both irritatingly and inexplicably _universally terrible at welters_. Eliot keeps trying to interject corrections, but Quentin just barrels right over him; and Margo enables Quentin shamelessly whenever she gets the opportunity, because she's a terrible human being.

"—so he used a fire spell to _make it into popcorn_," Quentin says; and Margo adds, "—also simultaneously kindling the unquenchable flame of Todd's passions—"; and Eliot—straightens: "Wait," he says, "_Todd_?"; and Quentin and Margo both turn not-quite-identical looks of slightly incredulous amusement towards him: Margo's, naturally, much meaner; and Quentin's, of course, a little closer up.

"Okay, well, if you actually didn't know that Todd was desperate for a ride," Margo says, "that makes you—_literally_ the only person who has been on campus at any point in the past, like, two and a half years."

Her voice is very flat. So Eliot—looks at Quentin: _dimples_.

"You didn't know," Quentin says: not really a question. And Eliot—

"I thought—I kind of thought he had a crush on _you_," he says, helpless; and Quentin's smile widens: incandescent.

"He practically clawed my eyes out after that party where you tried to bridal-carry me up the stairs," Quentin says; and Eliot's heart slams into his throat.

"You were _in the infirmary_," he protests; and Quentin—starts _laughing_; while Margo is telling Rachel, "Eliot _dropped_ him," with—a really unnecessary degree of enjoyment. "Seriously," Eliot says, because—he'll deal with that—_later_: "If he's going to come after you when you're—already _hurt_, you had—_stitches_—" 

"I felt," Quentin interrupts, "_just fine_": aiming for serious, and.

Missing. 

The long and short of it is—between the hangover, and the really unnecessary political debate, and the long, long, _long_ stretch of cringing embarrassment—

—Eliot doesn't remember, actually, to be nervous: not until they're standing—breathing out steam; shuffling their feet—under the golden porchlight bathing the three steps leading up to a squat little cinderblock ranch house in Skokie, with a bunch of white hand-made paper snowflakes taped up in the glowing front windows and a muddy doormat that reads, _HOLD ON, WE'RE PROBABLY NOT WEARING PANTS_. From the depths drifts the sweet, sweet melody of a small, angry dog, barking frantically.

"Um." Rachel huffs, shifting. "Should I—ring the doorbell again, d'you think, or—"

"Pretty sure they know we're here," Margo says, sounding _very_ amused—

—and the door opens.

"Finally!" booms—a tiny, skinny old woman, with bright hazel eyes and a bright orange-and-pink scarf tied around her head. "I was _sure_ you'd got in an accident—all that ice!—and then I thought—no, no, _batcave_, Noodles": this to a grizzled pug, running in circles around their feet and growling— "go to your _batcave_—so then I thought, well, I know Rachel hasn't lived here for years but surely she still remembers enough to stay off the buses in _this_ weather, you know, _always stick with the trains_, and never mind how long it takes for the connection—you must be Eliot," she says: looking up at him, eyes as sharp as—as her cheekbones, his chin: "I'm your grandmother. You're late for dinner. Give me a hug."

"I," he starts; and then—laughs, a little, and bends—way, way down. "Hi," he says, breathing in: cold cream, ginger candy, drugstore perfume. "Yeah," he says, quiet, as she squeezes him. "I'm Eliot."

He stands up, blinking.

"Um." He rubs at his face. "Should—"

"Come on, come into the kitchen, you're letting all the cold in," she says, herding him in with—a sharp, determined little claw. "These must be—"

"This is my mother, Esther," Rachel is saying, "Mom, this is—uh—"; and Eliot—steadies himself and takes over, saying, "My best friend, Margo—she's staying with us—" who takes the ensuing bear hug very much in stride— "and, uh—my fiancé, Quentin": whose eyes go wide, a little alarmed: looking over Esther's shoulder to Eliot as Esther holds her arms up; then promptly squeezes him until he squeaks.

"I thought it was boyfriend," Esther says, pulling back to eye Quentin critically; and Margo laughs, while Quentin's expression—he looks sort of like a labrador in a party hat, honestly. 

"Well, it _was_, until last night," Margo says; while Quentin flushes: as Eliot sidles over to wrap a supportive arm around his waist. 

"Couldn't keep it in, what with all the champagne?" Esther says to Eliot, eyes shrewd; and Eliot—laughs, startled, around the burst of warmth in his chest. 

"Something like that," he agrees; then admits, "but—I'd been planning to ask him for. A while."

"Ah," Esther says, smiling. "Well! _Mazel tov_, et cetera—he's very good looking, isn't he?": to—to Quentin, which— 

"Oh, God, don't encourage him," Margo moans. "They're already both unbearable about each other—where can I put our coats?"

"_You_ can't put them anywhere, young lady," Esther says, holding out her skinny hands: "—here, give them to me—no, no, you're _guests_—Rachel, go introduce them to your sisters," she orders. "Lisa's been mixing mimosas since four-thirty; if she's not already three sheets to the wind, it's only because she only had enough champagne to get to two and a half."

At which Esther whisks their coats—the bundle practically bigger than she is—away into a side room; leaving Rachel, who looks—very slightly flattened, paler than usual—to say, "It's, um—just this way," very hesitantly; and then lead them down the narrow, stooped hall.

"I _thought_ I heard the alarm system—Noodles, that is—you kids drink mimosas?" asks a short, cheerfully pudgy woman, wearing a mess of short curls and a hideous magenta sweatshirt, shouldering her way in from a door to—to the garage, must be: her arms full of a giant jug of Florida's Best and two bottles of Barefoot Bubbly. "Hiya, Rache. Happy New Year": as she leans over to kiss Rachel on the cheeks. "I'm Lisa," she tosses over her shoulder. "Every time Rachel comes by we tell her to bring you; only takes her a week—or, you know, twenty-si—_no_, Eustace, back! Back!": the advance guard wading her way through the hall at the end of the hall, into a long shoebox of a kitchen, where Lisa says, "Oh, no": long-suffering, as behind her, they're all promptly mugged by a pair of huge, wagging beasts: both of whom—as do all dogs—immediately zero in on the cat person, and start liberally investigating Margo's shoes. 

"Uh—," Margo says, laughing a little. "Mm—uh, could you two—" so El crouches down: clicking his tongue at them, rubbing at their ears, their big blocky drooling faces; as next to him Quentin bends to let the bigger one—Eustace, Eliot gathers, who looks like he's probably about 80% black lab and 20% tarsier on cocaine—whine and ecstatically lick at his face.

"Hi there," Eliot murmurs, to the other: a pitbull-ish sort of a contraption, who is huffing frantically, butting her head against his hands. "Who're you, hm? You my cousins?"

"Sort of," says a low, soft voice above him, "Closest you'll get from me, anyway—Noodles is mine, too": and Eliot looks up at—

"...Oh," Quentin says, quiet; as Margo says, "Huh!"

"I—wow," Eliot says, clambering up to his feet. "I—you must be—"

"This is Jean," Rachel says, just behind them, "my oldest sister": and Eliot takes her hand, still—staring, because—

—because—

Because—the thing is that Eliot never did look anything like the _other_ side of the family—universally solid, stolid blond square-jawed types—but he also doesn't, actually, really look all that much like his mom. He got her brown curls, sure, and maybe—_maybe_—a certain something about the face: but it's always been just—a suggestion, more than anything, that they might not just happen to be strangers passing in the street: because _Eliot_—well, Eliot does fine, doesn't he; but _Rachel_ usually just happens to be—Eliot suspects: _always has_ just happened to be—the most beautiful person in the room. It's part of what makes him so crazy, honestly, over her continual insistence on wearing the least-flattering outfit she can find: if _he_ had a face like that? _Christ_—: but Eliot looks at Rachel, and then at Jean, and then at Rachel again, and then back at—at _Jean_, in her soft-grey cowl-neck sweater and her well-tailored black cigarette pants: because—because you wouldn't particularly assume that _they_ were related, either, would you? But for Eliot, looking at Jean is like looking in a mirror: plus twenty-five years and about two feet of hair, and minus about fifteen inches of height.

Jean pushes her glasses up her nose, smiling. "I don't have to ask who you are, do I?" she asks; and then laughs. 

"No," he says. Laughing, too: "God, that's weird—I had no idea," he says.

She smiles at him—at his side, Quentin makes a little noise—then asks, "You like dogs?"

"I—yeah." Eliot looks down. "I—we had a collie, when I was a kid, she was—a really good dog"; and Rachel, rueful, adds, "Even though she wouldn't stay out of the trash."

"Well," Jean says, voice mild, "she was a dog": and Eliot has that odd, off-balance sensation of disorientation again: the sea underneath him surging up, to well into the cage of his chest. Jean glances at Quentin, then nods down at the dogs. "That's Eustace you've got there—the lab mix—and the pitbull's Carina. They're both sweethearts. I know Noodles is around here somewhere," she sighs, "_not_ in his crate, because—"

"Because he's a little bonkers," Lisa says cheerfully, coming back over, without her armful of orange juice and wine. "They all are: rescues, you know. Jean's got a soft heart. Anyway, I've been drinking for two hours and Mom kept yelling at me for getting into the dinner food, so—" she holds out a bowl, to Margo, and asks, "Might I interest you in a dignity-preserving nut?"; and Margo pauses, then says, "Well, _that's_ a new one"; and Lisa blinks, then laughs: a loud, awkward bray of a laugh—

"Oh, I like _you_," she says, holding out a hand. "Margo, isn't it?": as Margo shakes it.

"Yeah," Eliot says, "and this is—"

"Quentin the very charming boyfriend," Lisa says, beaming as she reaches for him: Quentin blushes a bright, comprehensive red. 

"Oh, er, um," says Quentin; and Lisa's smile just gets wider.

"I hear you went to Columbia," she says, and then drops her voice, confidential: "I went to Cornell," she is telling Quentin, just Eliot notices for the first time, more or less simultaneously, that she's wearing pea-green slipper socks, and that the front of her sweatshirt says: : _ETHS Math Team 2013-2014_; as Lisa adds, "but for family, I _suppose_ I can forgive you." The front just says, _COACH_.

"...Does Cornell not like Columbia?" Quentin asks, sounding a little confused; and Lisa looks at Eliot, who explains, "I don't think he actually knows which one football is."

"Yes I do," Quentin says, indignant; and then—he takes a breath and adds, "That's the one you play with your feet, right? And like—I think there's a ball?": eyebrows scrunched up, but the corner of his mouth is twitching.

"Oh, dear, you _are_ charming," Lisa says, laughing; and then pats his cheek with one hand, before turning, arms open, to Eliot.

"And _you_," she says, "are my nephew Eliot": Eliot slides into the hug, and then—_oofs_: she's stronger than she looks. Like, a lot. "I'm the loud one," Lisa tells him: both confidentially, and unnecessarily; then pats his back before pulling away to look up at him critically. "He really does look like you, Jean," she says; and Jean says, "I noticed," amused.

Lisa nods, squeezing Eliot's elbows, once, before letting him go. "Genetics is such a crapshoot, isn't it?" she says. "We're still not sure how we ended up with Supermodel McGee over there, and Olivia—my daughter—came out nearly blonde, so who knows? I mean, I don't _think_ her dad had an affair."

Eliot shifts. Her eyes are sparkling. The obvious joke aside— "Your daughter?" he asks.

"—Oh," she says, visibly realizing—: "yes, of course—she'd've been thrilled to meet her cousin, but we didn't know if you'd come—besides, they're on quarters and she didn't want to be stuck in Evanston on New Year's, so she'd already got her tickets for last Friday. You'll just have to make sure you come for dinner in the spring." She pats his forearm, and Eliot swallows. Nods: even as Lisa is already turning— "Do any of you know how to make this crap drinkable?" she asks, voice plaintive: holding up one of the bottles of Barefoot.

"That's a pretty big ask, Lisa," Margo says, still crunching; then holds the bowl of nuts out to Quentin.

Lisa looks Margo over critically. "You look like a woman of spirit and determination," she says, decisively; and then crooks a finger: "I'm sure we can come up with something": so over Margo goes, laughing a little. Eustace is still nosing vigorously at Quentin's jeans, so Quentin sets the bowl on top of a stack of cookbooks, so he can rub the dog's ears with both hands; Carina barks, once, apparently feeling neglected, and when Eliot glances down, she scrambles back, grinning, as she lunges halfway into a play-bow. She's wagging from the shoulders back—

—and then Eliot catches sight of his mom, hanging back by an old-fashioned wall-mounted landline—curly cord and all—just inside the kitchen doorway. She looks—

—pale, Eliot thinks: pale, and tired, and washed-out. Overwhelmed.

"Um, Mom," Eliot asks. Nudging Carina's paws off his thighs: . "Are those—" He casts around, a little desperately, before pointing towards the far wall: "Family pictures?" he guesses; and she nods, thank God.

"Yeah," Rachel says, and straightens up, slightly; picking her way through the cramped little room, past the cheerfully ugly yellow-brown kitchen table, the clutter of chairs, two portable dog crates padded with fleecy mats tucked in under the window, and another, much smaller, at the end of the counters: Eliot just behind her the whole way. "Mom—she's a little bit of a pack rat," Rachel explains, indicating—well, the whole wall, really: fabric-covered and pinned full to bursting with faded postcards and award ribbons and endless, endless snapshots: that's Lisa, obviously: beaming hugely, a square stocky kid in a tank suit and swimcap, holding up a trophy with her goggles pushed up onto her head; Jean, about age seven, in a deeply 70s navy blue jumper and white blouse, peering seriously at a music stand across the scroll of a violin. And—Rachel, too, of course: except—

—except that Rachel's, he notices, aren't—from swim team, or violin recitals: they're almost all—family snapshots, he thinks, with a pang in his chest: looking at a toddler Rachel, giggling, as she's swung up by a short, wiry man with a 70s turtleneck and bushy mustache; or the odd, slightly awkward staged shots produced by school photographers the country over: Rachel, eight or nine, her sweet smile framed by a Peter Pan collar and a pair of thick braids; a pre-teen Rachel in acid wash denim and huge bangs; Rachel, very tiny, looking worried, with her curls pinned back in plastic barrettes, all of them carefully posed in front of those weird faux-marble school photo backgrounds. Just like—

—the photo Rachel reaches for, as she nudges a blue ribbon aside.

_Oh_: Eliot thinks; and then—swallows. "_Mom_," he says, throat tight; and she ducks her head.

"It was senior year," she explains. Quiet. "Everything was—about to change." Rubbing her thumb over the ribbon: Jean's, Eliot notes. For spelling. Second grade. Rachel says, "So, I thought..." Quiet. 

She stops, then. Shifts, a little: awkward, in her shoes.

"It just seemed like," she says, "it was time to try—something new."

Eliot's forehead aches. He nods, though: feeling—oddly heartbroken, even though—he doesn't know _why_. Not really: not when—when from the frame, Rachel is forever seventeen, smiling shyly out at them: her brown eyes sparkling, with her perpetually-perfect skin; an ugly necklace and a loose-fitting black button-up, fastened all the way up to its very ridiculous pointed collar; with her hair, dark and gleaming, cut to her ears: curling only just enough to frame the edges of her young, beautiful face.

He swallows. Says, "So—so you decided—to cut off your hair," finally; and she makes a noise.

Eliot looks at her sidelong. Her expression is—almost _hurt_, he thinks. Odd, anyway: her brown eyes huge and wide, the edges of her braid frizzing a little; but her mouth is angled oddly, pinched into that expression that lives in the vast, poorly-bounded plains between a smile and a frown. She's not looking at him this time, though, is she.

"Jean's five years older than me," Rachel says, after a second. Quiet; slow. "She was—she'd just graduated. Came straight home from Champaign-Urbana and started working as an analyst at Citibank—and _Lisa_, Lisa was at Cornell, and my mom—she taught history, before she retired. High school. Forty years. Couldn't afford to get her masters, just a teaching credential, so she was just—stuck, you know? In K-12; and my dad—well, he was a butcher because his dad was a butcher and his _dad_'s dad was a butcher, back in Leipzig, so Dad never—had a chance, did he, to be anything else; and here's Lisa: full ride to an Ivy League, twenty years old and already interviewing for Ph.D. programs, and—and _God_, Mom was so proud of her I thought she was going to just—float away." 

Rachel breathes in, deep. Her face—

"And then," she says, "then there was—me": with an odd little half-question curl at the end; and Eliot.

Looks away.

"I was never going to go to college, was I," Rachel says, quiet. "And I wasn't—I didn't have. Anything I _loved_. I just—I liked a lot of little things, that's all": quiet: reaching up, to touch the photo: her necklace, actually. He shifts. Questioning—her taste, really, because it hasn't aged well, has it? Made from—velvet, looks like, embroidered with—

—_oh_: Eliot thinks, feeling—

—suddenly ashamed of himself.

Rache—shifts, a little. From foot to foot.

"My friends were getting in trouble for—sneaking into the city, or out to the lake to drink beers and smoke weed, but—but here's—_my_ family": her voice scratchy. "Worried constantly because—because I could barely scrape a B in art class, even though I could spend—_hours_ in my room, sculpting or sewing or decorating—my shoes, or—they were just—they were so _confused_ by me," she says: plaintive. "They weren't even _disappointed_." Ducking her head. "And I wanted—_she_ wanted. That version of me." She laughs, eyes pinched at the corners. "She felt like—like an alien. She just wanted to be _someone else_, you know?"

"Yeah," Eliot says, very quietly; and Rachel shakes her head.

"So—everyone always noticed my hair, so I cut it," she says; and then laughs, raw. "My sisters went to college, so I got married. They chose—New York and Chicago, so I chose—Indiana, didn't I?"; and Rachel sighs, and closes her eyes.

Eliot squeezes her shoulders. Looking back at her, age seventeen, and feeling—an odd, unmanageable sort of tenderness for her: for _all_ of her, all these versions of of her: Rachel, now, awkward and unfashionable but—forging forward, always, making and remaking her own way; for his mother nine years ago, looking at him across their kitchen table and choosing to give him—another life; for the girl in the photograph: a child, still, really; feeling trapped and alone and uncertain, and wanting—an escape. It's—bizarre, actually. Eliot knows, doesn't he, that the version of his mother who—made him pancakes in shapes and asked him questions about dinosaurs was closer to _that_ Rachel than _this_ one, but—but she just looks so fucking _young_, doesn't she. She looks like—a child, still, honestly: this person who would be, in a year and a half, his mother: barely even a _sketch_ of a woman. 

Not yet filled in.

"And now." Rachel shakes her head. "Now I look at her and think—was _she_ the alien," she says, slow, "or am I?"

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/alien)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/alien)

[All these versions of of her.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/alien)

He swallows. "Does it matter if you're an alien?" he asks. 

She looks up at him; and he shifts, a little.

"I mean—you're Rachel Weiner." Feeling—useless, and dumb. "Because—you're _choosing_ to be Rachel Weiner, aren't you?"; and her mouth quirks.

"And that's what matters?" she asks; in that—odd, half-laughing way of hers: he can never tell whether or not she's making fun of him, exactly.

"Well. I think so." He shrugs, looking back at the photo. "I like your necklace," he says, low; and she snorts. 

"No, you don't," she says. "You hate it. You've got taste. It's a pure distillation of not being able to afford new school clothes in 1989."

He shrugs. Back prickling. "You made it, though, didn't you?" he asks. Wanting— "For you. You made it for you, because—because it _fit_ you, didn't it?" he asks. "In 1989."

She doesn't answer. Just—lets out a breath, sliding her arm around his waist as he squeezes her shoulder; leaning a little towards him, to rest her cheek—very warm—against his shirt.

They both jump, though, when behind them Lisa laughs: a loud, buoyant cackle, sun-bright; and then Rachel looks up, just as Eliot looks down; and they meet each other's eyes.

"So—regret it, yet?" Rachel asks. Low, voice curling up with her mouth: behind them, Margo is giggling, Jean interjecting—something about—gin, or— 

"Saying—you'd come, I mean," Rachel adds; and then—first one side of her smile slips, and then.

The other.

Eliot tilts his head. "I like them," he says. "But. They're a lot for you, aren't they?": and she lets out a breath.

"Sometimes," she admits; then nods, up at her younger self: "For her, definitely," she says, quiet. "All the time."

Eliot nods. Rubbing a hand over the back of her shoulder: looking up just in time to catch Quentin hesitantly sidling towards them, looking—Eliot catches the question in his eyes, then holds out his other arm.

Quentin comes over. Tucks himself in: warm and close.

"Sorry," Eliot says. "Didn't mean to—abandon you, or—"

"No, no, your family's really nice—but, uh. Mostly I've been hanging out with the dogs," Quentin says, a little awkwardly; and Eliot has to let go of Rachel to put both arms around him, turn to kiss his temple. "Mm": leaning into it, just before he says: "Oh! Rachel, that's you?"

"Yeah," Rachel says, voice wry. "Um—that one's—freshman year, I think. Sophomore, maybe?"

Quentin nods. "I like the outfit," he says, very earnestly: turning those big guileless brown eyes over at her like she hasn't already known him long enough to know when to roll her eyes at him and say, "Quentin, not even _you_ could possibly like those shoulderpads."

"Wall of Shame," announces Esther: bustling back in in a swirl of wide trousers and paisley. "I keep it to keep them in line," she explains, to Eliot; and then reaches up to tap a frame. "Remember this?" she asks Rachel; and Rachel says, "_Mom_," sounding absolutely mortified: it's a Polaroid of a toddler standing in the middle of a wading pool in a ruffly pink one-piece and, very obviously, bawling her eyes out. Esther huffs. "Never did like water," she confides, to Eliot, "and both her sisters at _least_ three-quarters seals, the pair of them."

"I don't love swimming, either," Eliot admits; and Quentin snorts.

"He'd just rather lie out and be admired," he explains to Esther, who emits another wild, overloud burst of laughter. 

"Nice work if you can get it!" she tells him; and then pauses. "What about _this_?" she asks, reaching out to touch a photo of Rachel in a navy blue velvet midi dress (more shoulderpads), looking away and up, somewhere in the vicinity of a corner of the ceiling behind her, while slow-dancing with a boy who doesn't quite come up to her chin.

"Oh. Ben. I forgot about him," Rachel says, and then sighs. "He was—annoying."

"Well of course he was, all boys are annoying, when they're thirteen. First dance," Esther explains, leaning towards Quentin, "with the rabbi's son at his bar mitzvah": obviously relishing every second; "My mother must've had the day of her life over that one—well," she concedes, "day of her—death, anyway"; and then, to Eliot, she adds, "She spent her whole life _knowing_ I'd never make anything of myself"; and then, sotto voce, "but I'd like to've seen _her_ go to college in 1966 and not smoke any weed—": which—

"El," Quentin says, quiet. Stilled—just off to one side, his finger nudging against—

"—Ah," Esther says.

—a little 3"x5" frame, with one of those washed-out faded drugstore snaps in it: and Eliot feels like he ran into a wall: looking down at—

—at himself.

Three, probably. Maybe four. In blue footie pajamas trimmed with rickrack (clearly homemade), caught awkwardly in—in what was, obviously, intended to be a heartwarming family snapshot in front of—of a window, frosted at its edges, and glowing with candles; but whatever she'd intended, it had plainly gone very slightly awry, hadn't it. In the picture, Eliot is reaching for something just out of sight, looking serious and a little annoyed, in that way little kids often do, and not looking at the camera at all; while behind him, Rachel is crouched on the floor, half-kneeling with her hand on his belly, trying to—to get him to sit on her lap, he realizes. With her half-grown-out hair half-hiding the pale bowed blur of her face.

"Mm. I remember when that came in the mail," Esther says. Quiet: as she reaches over, and unhooks it from the wall. Tipping it up, in one papery thin hand. "Brown paper, around a bunch of paper towels," she murmurs. "No return address."

Rachel looks down. Silent.

Eliot swallows. He doesn't know if that shot had just been—oh, the leftovers, probably: from a single roll some time when they couldn't afford duplicates, or—or if—

—if that'd been the best, maybe. Probably: he is realizing; seeing—something he doesn't know, and couldn't possibly remember, but—it fits, doesn't it? That window—that's not the farmhouse, so—it must've been in their old apartment, the one he's never been able to remember; Rachel, home alone with Eliot, trapped by the cold and the snow; probably wasting a whole roll of film on that one mediocre shot as she tried over and over to position her old clunky Pentax on—on a chair from the kitchen table, or the arm of the sofa: the timer snapping the shutter just as Eliot squirmed away. 

Quentin shifts, under Eliot's arm. "Couldn't sit still?" he asks. Reaching over to touch—the edge. Of tiny-Eliot's face.

Eliot squeezes him. Feeling—grateful, mostly. For the solid safe warm space of him, amid—all of this. "As I recall, no, it wasn't a strength," Eliot says. 

"I just thought—you should see him," Rachel says: barely above a whisper. "Like that, at least."

"And you will never know," Esther says, "how grateful I was of it." Her voice—unsteady. Just a bit. "Didn't give you much reason for that, even, did I?" she asks; and then laughs: an awkward, abortive little croak.

Rachel's mouth twists. "I wouldn't've let you," she says; and then.

Sighs.

"You were—really cute, El," says Quentin, with—with that odd, tense voice he gets, when he's—getting really overwhelmed—Eliot twists to look down at him, wondering if he needs to take him away for a minute, or something—just as Esther snorts. Pushing her shoulders back, straightening up to—all five foot zero point zero seven inches of her height; and then says, "Well! Mostly I just thank God he didn't take after the Harrises!"

And Eliot.

Freezes; just as Rachel says, "_Mom_": laughing, a little.

"Who?" Quentin asks, looking up; just as Lisa calls, "Mom!": louder than necessary, probably, given the size of the kitchen; "I'm starving, will you come _on_ already?"

"Calm down, calm down, I'm getting them, I'm getting them—Lisa would like us to come to the table," she says, confidentially, as she puts a hand on Eliot's back, which is starting, very slowly, to unclench. "You're by me," she tells him, "privilege of age and decrepitude," which is—a laugh, since—illness and all, anyone less decrepit than Esther is hard to imagine; "and Quentin can sit between you and Jean—no, don't worry, honey": to Quentin, who is tensing palpably, under Eliot's arm: "I was a teacher for years, you know," Esther tells him, "and I've always known when to ply my yarn—I think I'm alarming him, Eliot, look after your young man": so Eliot. _Does_: sitting down next to Quentin in one of the blonde-wood chairs, with all their faux-colonial mouldings: there's a little dent, he notes, in the edge of his, right where his fingers fall when he goes to scoot it in, before he reaches over to take Quentin's hand. Margo and Lisa are still at the kitchen counter, arguing over—hm—an array of about seventeen wine glasses, water glasses, teacups, and coffee mugs, along with not only the orange juice and Barefoot but—more alarmingly—a bottle of Cointreau and a handle of vodka: "Lisa, I thought you were hungry," Esther scolds, scooting in just to Eliot's left—

—totally ignoring Jean and Rachel as they circle the table, the unassuming interwoven dance of two bodies who have done this many, many times—leaning in towards the whole herd of little half-burned candles lined up in a trail down the middle of the table to light them: the normal way, with a box of matches.

"We're just not sure which of these is any good," Lisa is explaining, reaching for a blue mug; then tilting her head and exchanging it for a white one instead, with writing on it; "Don't give El the blue one, he'll complain about it being too sweet," Margo advises, and Lisa nods.

Leaning over his shoulder to light a red-and-purple jar candle in the shape—honest to God—of a peace sign, Jean catches his gaze. Winks down at him, and then pats his shoulder and murmurs: "It doesn't mean anything—Mom just likes them." She sidles behind him, stretching out between him and Quentin as she adds, "But—she does still keep the silver ones set aside, for Friday nights."

And Eliot.

Swallows.

Looking out at the candles: they flicker and smear. He didn't—know, did he? He never even—

"Uh." Eliot licks his bottom lip: candles, in the farmhouse kitchen, set to light: burning until— "I—Friday nights?" 

Jean's eyes crinkle. "You should come for dinner," she says. 

—_until_ dinner, Eliot is thinking. When it was. Just them: candles, because—because _her_ mother liked them, or—or because—and then—now _he_ lights them, doesn't he? When he's. 

Homesick.

"I—yeah," Eliot says. "I don't—I, I'd like to, but. But I don't know anything about—"

"You know how to eat?" Jean asks; and Eliot says, "Um. Yes?"; and "You'll do fine," she says, "anything else, we can show you": as she squeezes his shoulder, and then pulls back, slides around, to light the one just past Quentin.

Eliot blinks: light—smearing—

"What about," Lisa is saying, "if we added more vodka, or—"

"Stop using up all my liquor and bring over the olives," Esther tells her; so Lisa, looking sheepish, nudges Margo, who grabs every glass and cup she can carry; Lisa slinking over to the table behind her carrying three mugs looped through the fingers on her right and and a bowl of black olives in the left: the cheap, salty-bland kind that Eliot has always secretly loved, even though they come out of a can. Lisa gives Eliot the white mug, which turns out to say _Student Tears_. Eliot takes a breath, and then a sip; Lisa nudges Rachel into the chair on Esther's other side, putting Margo between her and Lisa, while Jean pulls out the chair at Quentin's right: the two big dogs immediately lumber over to crowd around Jean's chair, though from the amount of low-volume rustling going on over there, Eliot suspects a brief yet fervent canine argument over who got to sit on the side next to Quentin. 

Dinner turns out to be, well. _Nice_. Weird, but nice: the herd of hippie candles—one of which smells like vanilla, but most of them just smell like beeswax—illuminate an unfussy cold chicken (_very_ nicely roasted, though); a very boring green salad; a pan full of heavily caramelized sweet potatoes and parsnips and carrots that Esther has to pop back out of her seat, half-panicking, because she forgot it in the oven, which turns out to've just made it better; two-thirds of a leftover rice casserole, reheated, that gives Eliot severe—and disorienting—church potluck flashbacks; some kind of soup made out of—pond weed or something ("It's kale!" Lisa protests, laughing); and an amazing, _amazing_ loaf of bread, which Jean explains she'd baked that morning. "Hobby," she says; and then shrugs, a little, smiling: "since I can't knit." And the mediocre cocktails, of course, which probably _are_ making the best of a bad situation—in this case, that truly dreadful sparkling wine. 

Olives, of course.

From a can.

The Weiners interrogate them about life, about school, about work: obviously already well-informed, but still relentlessly inquisitive. Margo always has to be so careful what she says about her job that probably Rachel's entire family is busy quietly deciding, based on her careful non-answers, that she works for the CIA; but it takes Esther all of about fifteen seconds to get Quentin to spill that he's headed to Northwestern after graduation—as a biomedical engineering lab tech, he explains: it's not true, precisely, but it's what he'll look like, won't he. Lisa lights up: she teaches in the NU math department, so she first tries to grill him about his contract; his supervisor; whether or not he has a leg up, does he think, if he decides he wants to go for the Ph.D.—and it's Jean, finally, who gets her to stop, leaning her forearms on the edge of the the table, half-laughing, to say, "Remember how you promised Olivia you'd leave your helicopter-mom pants off, in the new year?"; after which Lisa spends most of the rest of the meal telling Quentin extremely nerdy horror stories about Northwestern—"Nerdwestern," she says smugly, "we have t-shirts." The whole time Eliot keeps snickering into his drink (which smells sort of like orange soda and sort of like floor cleaner), while Quentin's eyes just get wider and wider: Eliot squeezes his hand under the table, hoping it's reassuring. He's about 70% sure that that story about the mice and the bubblegum and the 3-D printer is totally made up. 

"But _then_," Lisa says, obviously relishing every moment, "he got a _cat_—"

Jean puts her mug down. "Does this story end badly for the cat?" she asks, voice mild; and Lisa stops.

"Uh," she says. "I mean—it doesn't end _great_. Like—"

"Lisa, there are times," Esther sighs; and then puts her elbows on the table, leaning towards Eliot. "You know—I wanted to call her Ruth," she explains, in a voice that's nowhere near quiet enough to be actually confidential. "But my mother always thought—well." She huffs. Sighs, shaking her head. "She spent a year and a half furious I hadn't named Jean after anybody, and then she lectured me from the minute she found out I was pregnant again until—I was in the hospital in stirrups, practically, about not calling the baby after her older sister Rose because Rose'd once muscled in on a boy that _she'd_ been entitled to; or after Aunt Bertha because Bertha'd _been a lush_": Esther widening her eyes as she (doesn't) drop her voice into a theatrical whisper: on the other side of the table, Jean giggles. "But she didn't want me to get _too literal_, either, did she? Just kept squawking, 'Whatever you try to make them, they'll be just the opposite, you know!': but _if only she'd known_": voice dark, as she looks over at Lisa; who promptly sticks out her tongue: proof positive that—well, that everyone's mother makes them regress to the third grade, probably. Eliot's shoulders are prickling, under his shirt. "Oh, well!" Esther throws up her hands. Sitting back, as she laughs. "She wasn't _wrong_, was she? Had me to use, didn't she, as my own cautionary tale."

"Cautionary tale how?" Rachel asks; and Esther waves.

"Oh—she _hated_ your dad," she says: casual. It strikes Eliot as—funny, almost; right up until Esther says, "Always thought I could've done better—she was such a _snob_, you know—her family'd had some money, at some point, before—well, before. And it was quite the comedown for her, I think, to come here in the thirties, and be just another poor immigrant: no money, schoolgirl English, just trying to stay alive. So then she spent—oh, years, really, telling me over and over: _You married a_ butcher_, when we named you for a queen_!"

And Eliot's whole body prickles: an electric rush, all at once, head to toe: Quentin is turning to look at him, too, of course—; but Eliot—; and then Esther turns to face Eliot: eyes wide, unblinking, nearly blue.

"Amazing, isn't it," Esther says to Eliot: and her voice wobbles, a little. "How little we can learn, when we choose not to." She laughs, a little; and then—then her eyes well up: wet, shining in the candlelight. "Don't you think?" she says; and then laughs again, mouth twisting. 

Shaking her head, as she looks down at her lap, picking up her napkin in her thin, trembling hands.

"Mom," Rachel says, quiet: reaching over; and Esther takes a deep, unsteady breath; and reaches back. Squeezing Rachel's fingers with one clawed hand, as she mops at her cheeks with the other.

"You going to have kids?" Esther asks; and then looks at—at Margo, which—wow, no.

"Wow, no," Margo says, eyebrows lifting. "I mean—ask _them_, but what you're thinking is definitely _not_ happening, like ever, so"; to which Esther—disorientingly—just nods.

"Well, I couldn't be sure," Esther says; "the _ménage à trois_ is so fashionable again": and before Eliot can process _that_ one, she's turning the full force of that eagle-ish gaze back on him again, and then—then to Quentin, still clutching Eliot's hand underneath the table: "Well?" Esther demands—

—and it takes Eliot a single, heart-stopping second to backtrack enough to realize that she's still talking about the _kids_.

"_Mom_," Rachel says: obviously mortified, "they're so—_young_, still, they're not even—"

"Yeah, we are," Quentin says; and then—shifts, a little. "We've talked about—I mean." He squirms. "It's not like—uh—of course we know that Margo wouldn't, um—"

Eliot clears his throat. "We haven't exactly worked out all the details," he says, "but yeah. We want kids"; as under the table, Quentin gives his hand a grateful squeeze.

Esther nods. Eyes tight at the corners. "And have you talked about it?" she demands. "Not—how you'll _make_ them, because—honestly, who cares about the—_mechanics_ of the thing; and besides—oh, I _hate_ that language, honestly. I may be old and I probably _am_ a fool but I've had—the past quarter of a century, haven't I, of being reminded over and over that children aren't—they're not _scarves_, are they, you can't just—go back and _unravel some stitches_, can you, when you do something wrong, so—_have_ you talked about it? I mean actually _talked_ about—how you'll how you'll _raise_ them? Because if I've learned—_anything_," she adds, "it's that—they'll leave, because—that's just what children do, isn't it, and you won't decide where they go or when they come back, and the only thing they'll take with them is what you give them _freely_": a low, halfway-alarming quaver, at the back of her voice. "And—sometimes. What they take. Is not what you meant to give."

Eliot—swallows; as Rachel bows her head.

"Yeah," Quentin says, quiet. "We've talked about it." Looking at Esther, absolutely steady; he pauses, then takes a breath. "But—" 

He hesitates, again, then shifts forward, in his seat.

"I have—I think a fair amount of experience, with messing up," he says. "I mean—that's the nature of—being a person, I think?" Mouth twisting, a little bit. "My dad and I—we didn't really... we weren't—close, I guess," Quentin says, and then—takes a breath. "For—for a long time. I didn't—I didn't want to—let him see. All the parts of me that seemed—disappointing, so—I just hid—all of me. And—I mean, he wasn't perfect, either, but—he _worked_ for it, you know? I mean—for _me_, he always tried to—to find me, I guess": and then ducks his head, as Eliot squeezes his hand. Looking at—the candlelight, washed all over him: lighting up little amber glints in his soft brown hair. 

"I don't—know anything about knitting," Quentin mutters, after a second; and Eliot—blinks, confused, before Quentin looks up at Esther again and says, "But—what do you do, if—if the scarf is finished, before you notice that you made a mistake?"

"Her?" Lisa snorts. "She unravels the whole thing and starts over."

"Perfectionist," Jean says, more quietly; but—smiling, very gentle, while she says it.

Esther isn't paying attention to them. Just looking at Quentin, with—with an expression that Eliot _recognizes_, he realizes: with a sudden, sharp shock: her face—relaxed, a little amused; and Eliot doesn't believe for a second that she feels—either of those things: an expression that Eliot recognizes, from the inside.

"Well, my love," she says. "Generally, you do wind up unraveling at least _part_ of it—but if you do that with a person, I'm _fairly_ certain it makes you a sociopath."

Quentin tilts his head, and then—then he looks at Rachel, instead.

Rachel clears her throat. "It depends a lot on what kind of mistake it is," she says. "But—if you've just—dropped a stitch, say, you can use a crochet hook to pull it up as far as it'll go, and then attach it to the stitches around it and give everything a tug, to make it look a little better."

"You'll still be able to see the mistake, though, won't you," Lisa observes. 

Jean huffs. "I can't."

"But you're not a knitter," Lisa says, waving a hand. "If you know what you're looking at, and where to look? Mistakes like that—_haunt_ me, when I've made them. And it's—_much_ less forgiving than _that_, even, if it's—oh, lacework, or something—"

"Yeah, but people aren't lacework, are they?" Rachel interrupts, jerking her head up: the first time all night, Eliot thinks, that he's heard her raise her voice.

To Eliot's left, Esther closes her eyes. Quentin is quiet, at his other side.

After a second, Eliot clears his throat. "Well," he says. Throat tight. "I've got—a history of. Thinking that—oh, you know, if you can't do everything right, right from the start, better—burn it down and start over, so—I guess it's good to know we're related, Lisa," he says; Jean huffs, as steady, across the table, Eliot meets Margo's eyes.

"I have—this friend," he says. Not looking—anywhere else. "And he—he's not—_crafty_, you know, but he's. A bit of... a tinkerer, I guess? Handy, you know—fixes things. All the time." Her eyes are huge, and brown, and steady: fixed on him; he can say it, probably, to her. So: "And he's really, really good at it," he explains, to Margo. "And I know he doesn't _think_ of it as—art, or whatever, not like—_making things_, but—it is. Isn't it. Because—I think—it's easier, what people like us do, people like—_me_," unsteady: "it's _easier_, in a lot of ways, isn't it? To start from nothing." He can feel—heartbeats. "Total artistic control, you know?" In his fingers. "All mine." In his wrists. "So—I can do—whatever I like, can't I? _Make_ it whatever I like. Because—that project, that. Creative work, or whatever": Eliot waves a hand. "Until it's done, it doesn't live anywhere except—inside of me," he says. "So—even if it's—a gift, or whatever, or I'm making it to a pattern, even if—I have some sort of—broader goal or requirement in mind, like at work, or whatever, I'm still—I'm the person _making_ it, aren't I? It doesn't exist until I—finish giving it form. So even if I have guidelines, or requests, or—a review process, or whatever, I'm sort of—fundamentally not really answerable to anyone else. Because I'm the person who's—"

He stops. Takes a breath. 

Eliot says, "Doing the work."

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/make_mend)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/make_mend)

[It's easier, isn't it? To start from nothing.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/make_mend)

Across the table, Margo's mouth quirks: and he knows that she's thinking about—about her jacket. Isn't she. About—how they'd gone back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, in that long-standing carefully-constructed fashion-spellwork hypothetical he'd kept elbowing her into: paisleys versus florals, florals or paisley: and—and she'd _won_. She'd won the argument, and that's—the core of it: that she'd won the argument, convinced him that the spellwork would work better and look sharper and last longer if it was worked into paisley from top to bottom, like the cover of the Book of Cypress, that was what they had—_agreed_: but then he'd done her jacket, and stolen her pants; and—and if you look at it up close, the pattern is still _made up of flowers_: because Eliot can be, actually, sort of a raging bitch.

"It's harder, isn't it," Eliot says, to Margo, "to have to admit that—_someone else's work_ is living alongside yours. That their—vision, or whatever, matters too." He takes a breath. "And that's—honestly, that's what makes what my friend can do so—_incredible_, God": squeezing, frantic: _squeezing_. "That he can—that he _always_ just—goes around seeing what someone else made, and trying to help it—be _better_, he can _want_ to make it better, he can just want to make it—_more that thing_, not—not just," Eliot says, throat tight, "to make it _his_."

Eliot can see—motion, can't he. Just at his right, out of the corner of his eye, but—he can't look away, not just then: Margo's beautiful face; and her huge, unflinching dark eyes. 

And then—Quentin rubs a thumb, right down the middle of Eliot's palm: it feels like—like a spell, Eliot is thinking, almost: as Margo says, "Like a collaboration"; and then, as Eliot is nodding, her mouth curves, slightly, as she adds, "Like my jacket."

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/crowns)

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/crowns)

[—halo'ed in gold, armed and armored and bejeweled and crowned—](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/crowns)

He leans back, rolling his eyes. "Bambi—"

"No," she says. "You're not getting off _that_ easy. I _know_ you think you—so, El made me a jacket," she says, turning towards Lisa. "Embroidered, all over, just—_really_ intricate work, I should've worn it today, probably, to show it off, but—that outfit's my best armor, you know? So I wore it yesterday on the plane, because I wanted some backup dealing with TSA—and El thinks—he sort of steamrollered me, like anyone actually _does_ steamroller me," she says: rolling her eyes at him; "Just because he sort of—took some artistic liberties, with what he knew I wanted—but that's what makes me love it so much, you know?"

"You _specifically said_ that florals were bullshit," Eliot protests; and she glares at him.

"Eliot, if you were a five-foot-nothing woman of color just trying to get people to take you seriously, do you think _you_ would want to show up places covered in flowers?" Her eyebrows lift. "_No_, you'd want to show up places covered in motherfucking—_knives_, or something, spikes all over—which, by the way, I'm deliberately not bringing my earrings into this, because they make your argument _laughably stupid_—but, like, you also don't want to look like you're _trying_, or something": and next to her, Lisa barks out a laugh.

Eliot swallows. "And I covered you in flowers," he reminds Margo; and she laughs.

"I wouldn't wear it if you _had_," she says. "You made it look—sharp, and cool, and _mean_; and the fact that—the pattern is _made up of teeny tiny flowers, if you look really closely_ just makes it even more fucking badass, it's like—what I do every day, with the way I look: you _kept_ it and you _used_ it and you made it something _weaponized_—you made it _mine_": and Eliot—

—sits back. Feeling—

"Jesus," she sighs; and then shakes her head, and then looks at—at Quentin. "Sometimes it's like he thinks—it makes it less _me_, or something," Margo says, "just because it's also _made up of him_."

"I know," Quentin says. Quiet. "Frustrating, isn't it?" 

Sounding—amused, a little bit; as he pets at the center of Eliot's hand.

Eliot's heart thumps.

"God," Esther says, finally; and then laughs. Cracking. Raw. She sighs, as she rubs at her face. "Well—I guess you really are—one of us, aren't you?" Turning, a bit, to look at Eliot: with a tight, painful half-smile. "All right," she says. "I suppose I'll take your point, even if—you didn't think it all the way through; and besides, you've got some balls, lecturing your elders—"

"He's right, though, isn't he?" Jean says, quiet. "It's not, perhaps, a family strength." 

Esther just stops. _Looking_ at her— 

The candlelight caught in the frames of Jean's glasses, as she adds, "Sharing the work."

It's funny. Eliot keeps catching himself—knowing and not-knowing them all at once, and being—_surprised_ by it, somehow: because—they might all have his hair; and Jean might have his face atop a slightly embarrassingly familiar dress sense; and yes, okay, fine, it might make him—flinch, almost, in places, but yeah, he can see the through line from Esther to Lisa to him without anyone drawing him a fucking map; but—he _doesn't_ know them. Does he. In that odd, two-places-at-once expression of Esther's, which he first learned on Rachel's face, he can see—years, decades, _ages_ of history: a story, unfinished, that every one of them knows and that Eliot doesn't; that Esther and Jean are, in that moment, writing together.

"No," Esther says, very quietly. "Probably not."

Jean nods; and then looks at Quentin. Smiling, as she earnestly tells him, "I've been reliably informed regular spankings help keep us in line": because oh, God, she's related to them _too_; and Quentin, predictably, flushes a bright, lovely, and _highly incriminating_ red.

Esther barks a laugh.

"Be nice," Rachel mutters, as Eliot looks over; and Esther says, "Too late for that now, liebling—besides, wouldn't want to give him a false impression, now, would we?"

Eliot looks at—at Jean, innocently sipping that toxic concoction out of a water glass; at Lisa, who is smirking at the both of them, but Margo is too, so—whatever. At Rachel, who looks—_hungry_, still, as though—

"I think—the picture he's getting is probably pretty accurate," Eliot admits; and then.

Turns his face, just enough, to meet Esther's eyes.

Esther hums, noncommittal. Looking back. 

Looking at her, Eliot feels—paper-thin, half-dissolved, before that steel-honed gaze: before the impossibly sharp juts of her knuckles and wrist bones; her tired mouth; the wire-thin planes of her face: he feels—hot, inside; like the candles running down the middle of the table are just—an echo, of something smoldering inside of him: a little light, kindled two decades ago, with his mother lighting candles on the table in the kitchen in the farmhouse, while the wind howled outside. Or—before that, maybe. Before he can even remember: the candles in the windows of the apartment, when Rachel tried to get to get him to hold still for the camera; or maybe—maybe before he was even born. Something in—in the pattern, maybe; or maybe just—something that had come into him later, a part of the making of him, by many hands.

Rachel's.

Margo's.

Quentin's.

His.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/many_hands)

[A part of the making of him, by many hands.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/many_hands)

"So," Esther says, after a minute. "These kids of yours. Are they going to be Coldwaters, then? Or Harrises?"; and across the table, Margo sucks in an audible breath.

Quentin just—looks at her, and then—up at Eliot. "Harrises?" he asks; and Eliot clears his throat.

"Um," he says; and then.

Laughs.

"I changed it," he manages, after a second. He shifts, a little, in his seat. "When—"

And—he stops. He can remember it—so clearly, can't he? Standing in front of the judges at his audition, and one of them had asked: _Name?_ And Eliot had said, _Eliot—_

(—and time had stopped, hadn't it; and then it had been—a thousand times at once: quiet in the morning, half fear half routine; apple pies, coming together from nothing, long peels in spirals on the cutting board board; Marianne frowning at him, stern and hard and nothing like—like he thought grandmothers were supposed to be; the first time he'd had to help with a calving and how hard he'd cried after; riding in the truck with his mom with country music papering over the careful fragile silence they'd wrapped themselves in like blanket after blanket until she turned it off and all that was left was the not-quite-cold of not saying anything at all. In that instant he is all the things he'd always done wrong and been useless at and _if you were a girl I'd hope you you could at least be decorative but_ and his awful cousins, the gateway to dozens of even more awful relations, just one step out, and his hair and his hands and _Don't lie to me!_ and the costumes for _Les Mis_ remaking him like his mother's sewing scissors carving through denim, canvas, corduroy had made and remade _them_: like—translation, he'd thought, before he had the language for—adaptation, reinterpretation: like making houses, he had thought, out of her old skins. In that instant with Harris on his tongue he is with his mother's missing Wal-Mart paychecks and his mother's quiet bowed head; with her ugly clothes and lovely sewing; her old blanket; her warm kitchen; her refuge against a perpetually raised voice and an often-enough raised hand; he is—with his mother, making—pancakes in shapes for him, while he explained to her why—why he wasn't—: and then—then Eliot, standing in front of those judges, had remembered that day, in the truck, with no heat; the bank, with the heat up too high; sitting on the floor watching a man's jeans cuffs drip, drip, drip onto the carpet while the clerk had said, _Mother's maiden name_, in just that same dull-bored tone, and how Rachel had replied—)

—_Waugh_. Swallowing: _I'm Eliot Waugh_, he'd repeated, more strongly, looking out at the judges: chin lifted, core strong, spine straight; and then _Eliot Waugh_ he'd said it again in the courthouse and again, _Eliot Waugh_, on his first day with the company: he'd said it over and over and over and over again: like working a spell before he even knew what one was: _Eliot Waugh_ and _Eliot Waugh_, all the way up until a very bored, very mean-looking little blonde had slid off the edge of the Brakebills sign above the south lawn and asked him, _Eliot Waugh?_; and when he'd nodded, all she'd said was: _I'm Marina. You're late._

"—to Waugh, actually," he admits; as Rachel—shifts, and then.

He clears his throat. 

Face hot.

No one says anything, for a long, taut moment. 

"I—sorry," he says, after a second, "maybe I—I know I'd never met you, so—maybe I shouldn't've done that."

_Awwww-kwaaaaaard_, he thinks; and then laughs.

Beside him, slow, Esther says, "...You changed it to—Wald?"

Eliot stops. Blinks, then looks at—

Rachel, who just looks—confused.

"...Wald?" he echoes. Feeling— 

To his right, Quentin is leaning forward, just as Esther does to his left, resting one skinny arm on the table: "Eliot," she asks, "did you say—you use my name, Wald?"

"Shit." Eliot's tongue is numb, as he says, "It's _Wald_?"

Esther stares at him, so Eliot stares back; and then—

Quentin's hand, warm and solid, settling—curved like a question mark tucked into his elbow: warm against Eliot's skin.

"I—I heard Mom say—_Waugh_, I—like, _once_," Eliot explains, looking at him, then back—up, at— "It was—at the bank, you know, when I was—I don't know, _seven_, probably—and I—I thought she said—"

(—remembering feeling feverish and heavy-headed and gross which was why he was home in the first place and not at school, sitting down by her feet in his too-small boots and heavy jacket with his head against her knee because the line had been really really long and he was really really tired and everything felt—thick, unreal, underwater—)

—_Waugh_, he is thinking. _Mother's maiden name_; and then—_Waugh_, so clearly: he can still fucking—_hear_ it: _Waugh_, she had said; because Eliot.

Had had.

A cold.

He swallows. Turns, half-dreading it, to look at Quentin, helpless; just as to his left, Esther—snorts. 

"Fine old Jewish name, Waugh," she says, very dry; as Quentin's mouth curves up: dimpling, a little, but only on the right. And Eliot—

"I had _no idea_," Eliot cries, looking over at—

"Well, no," Rachel admits, looking—embarrassed, "I didn't want you to have to—I always felt like, you know, the only Jew in Indiana—"

"Don't be ridiculous," Lisa snorts, "Aunt Pearl lives in Indianapolis"; and Rachel turns to tell her, "It is _a very very long way_, between Indianapolis and Whiteland—"

"I thought it was like half an hour?" Jean asks.

"I mean—spiritually, emotionally, _psychically_," Rachel says, exasperated, "when you're living on _a farm in Whiteland_, your Aunt Pearl in Indianapolis might as well be living in—in _Tokyo_, or the lost city of Atlantis—"

"Olivia's going to be pissed, you know," Lisa says, "that she spent her whole childhood going to Hebrew school on Saturdays, and Eliot got out of it—"

"You mean _you're_ pissed that _you_ spent your whole childhood going to Hebrew school on Saturdays, and Eliot got out of it," Jean counters; and Lisa throws up her hands: "_Hello_," she says, "I am _the most observant Jew at this table_, you don't even _pretend_ to keep kosher anymore"; and Jean pushes her glasses up and says, "Yeah, but—bacon is really delicious."

When Eliot makes the _deeply deeply terrible mistake_ of looking back over at Esther—his chest tight, heart doing something nautical and unsteady, underneath his ribs—she's still—_watching_ him: her expression sharp, sharp, sharp.

"Waugh?" she asks; and he nods. "After—your mother's side of the family," she adds; and he nods again, feeling—humiliated, honestly, as Jean, and Lisa, and Rachel, all fall quiet. But—but Esther's mouth just. 

Widens.

"Well," she says, "my husband's name was Weiner—" pronounced just the way Rachel says it, like _whiner_— "so if you had to get _one_ of them a little bit wrong, I think you made the right choice."

There is a long, suspended silence. 

And then, just the other side of Esther, Rachel slaps both hands down over her mouth, as she starts to laugh.

"Oh my God," Eliot mutters, and folds his hands over his burning face; as literally—_literally_ his—his _entire fucking family_ all starts talking over each other: Lisa piping up with, "Except—history is written by the weiners, Mom," to rhyme with _keener_; "Well, that's true," Quentin says earnestly, "except—if I know one thing about weiners, it's that every one that rises will inevitably also fall," which makes Jean—_howl_ with laughter, while Rachel is still giggling; as Margo asks, "Did you spend a lot of time getting asked if you sold hot dogs in high school?"; "Oh, God, I'd forgotten about that," says Rachel, breathless; and Jean adds, "You have no idea, honestly, how many jokes we heard about our buns," and then, still laughing, "so Mom just told us to just ask them if they liked stroganoff instead—"

Quentin is giggling helplessly, squeezing Eliot's elbow, and somewhere between a really truly terrible pun about condiments and Lisa running down everything every douchebag in her doctoral program had about her being _stiff competition_, Eliot manages to wipe his hands down, feeling—hot, and embarrassed, and—and _overwhelmed with fondness_, when Quentin looks up at him, then tips his face down to press a kiss to Eliot's biceps, nuzzling against his arm.

"Hi, you," Quentin murmurs, quiet; and Eliot takes a breath, slow.

"Regret it, yet?" he asks. When Quentin's eyebrows scrunch up, puzzled: Eliot nods down at Quentin's left hand. Eliot had made their rings in pieces: stainless steel, anchored by tiny half-hidden chips of carnelian, serpentine, lapis lazuli, amethyst, jade—: the colors forming the faintest hint of a pattern, very subtle, just where the edges of the pieces meet. Costume jewelry, honestly, but—but you can pull it all the way apart, and the halves stay looped together, feeding and fed by the spell. All of Quentin's dimples come out, all at once, as he pets down Eliot's arm.

"What," he says. "That your terrible, shameful secret has been... _exposed_?"

"Okay," Eliot says, resigned, "you're not going to get tired of this, like, ever, are you?"

"Hm, not for a while, anyway," Quentin says, beaming hugely; and then leans up for a kiss.

Eliot nuzzles their faces together, then pulls—back: to look down at Quentin: warm and lovely, the cupped hands cradling the heart of him; and then up, to Margo and Lisa, who are still locked in an ever-escalating battle of dick and/or hotdog puns, while Jean laughs, tears streaming down her copy of his face; to Esther, looking at him and Quentin as though—as though she is seeing, Eliot thinks, multiple versions of them at once. Lisa proffers a _kosher frank_; and Quentin sees and raises her eight-to-a-pack hotdogs and six-to-a-pack buns; and Margo balls up her napkin and throws it at him while Lisa and Jean are both howling with laughter—

—and Esther reaches over, and takes Eliot's free hand. "I like him," she says, quiet. Smiling at him. "I like—both of them": turning, just a little, to ask, "don't you, Rache?"

As Eliot looks up to Rachel looking at him: that old, familiar, starving expression: wanting, down to the bones of her; as Eliot—

—as Eliot is, so much of the time, wanting down to the bones of him.

"Yeah," Rachel says, quiet; and then, "I love your family, Eliot."

And Eliot.

He feels it like a sea-surge rising up in him: sitting with them at—at this hideous seventies table, drinking terrible cocktails out of a tacky white mug: Quentin's boozy-hot cheek on his shoulder and their hands wound warm together while Margo cackles about kielbasa with—with his _aunts_, sitting next to his _mother_; and Eliot thinks about—

—about the clock.

Because earlier, that—morning, or nearly, when Eliot had finally untangled himself enough from Margo and Quentin's competing octopus arms to stagger out through the fake door and around the hall and down through his closet into his hideous, hideous light-soaked bathroom to take a piss and rinse the dead rat out of his mouth with about half a bottle of Listerine, Happy Fucking New Year, he had managed to stagger back out into the closet-hallway just in time for the clock, down at its end, to strike noon: the painfully cheery clang of that fucking honky-tonk piano going full tilt while all its windows snapped open: the top filled with stars, vanishing behind a passing quick-drifting flurry of snow and then reappearing again in a bright rainbow whirl; while in the middle window, the table was crowded round with seven silhouettes, passing seven bowls between them, hand to hand, while the seven candles on the table cast the figures' shadows on the walls: every last one of them wearing a crown. Quentin'd come out, then. In Eliot's dressing gown, to smack at the clock until it'd knocked it off with the Beatles; and then he'd squinted up at Eliot and said, _I fucking_ hate _that song_—

—and then he had pressed up onto his tiptoes, murmuring, _What's the noun worth, anyway?_, as he smiled; and Eliot had felt—

Eliot swallows. 

"What do you mean, _my_ family?" Eliot croaks; as Rachel.

Blinks.

Eliot clears his throat. "I mean," he says. Rough. "I mean—they're yours too, aren't they?"

And Esther squeezes one hand, in her terrifyingly powerful tiny claw, as Quentin tightens his deathgrip on the other: Rachel's eyes are wide. 

Hungry, still. As though—

—that morning. That morning, standing in the hall before the clock with Quentin sliding his arms around him Eliot had felt Quentin's presence like—like the scarf, he was thinking. Like that woman's scarf, that wasn't a scarf; the cape that wasn't a cape; the blanket of fabric in the bottom window of their beautiful old clock: because by this morning it had grown into—a ribbon, Eliot had thought, or a rope: flying out and waving, as wild as the sea. Because—what an all-over miles-long ever-winding shifting spool it'd need to be, he had thought: to wind as it was winding amongst all of them; to wind, he thinks, until it connected the whole of them: Quentin not just connecting him to Rachel but—but to Jean, wearing her designer sweaters and her cigarette pants and Eliot's own fucking face; to Lisa, with her over-the-top-about-everything personality—so obviously a gift from Esther, bearing compound interest beneath Eliot's ribs. Eliot had felt Quentin like—he _feels_ Quentin like—like a thread of Rachel's embroidery, or his own: another way he is stitched into all of them as they are all stitched into him, like—like a tether. Another guideline, or one of Matthew's wayfinding spells: a direction, a pointer; but it would take more than that, wouldn't it, to keep them all together? As one? It would take—the way Eliot had crouched knee to knee with Margo with their hands in ropes and then stood unbound in snow learning to tie themselves together; the way he woke up every morning wanting to tie himself to Quentin, and Quentin just handed him the string. Because what counted wasn't the knots but how you made them, wasn't it? The snarled masses tethering him to Rachel: combed out, at last, to be—rewound, perhaps, into something new; this fragile hesitant thread looped around Esther and Lisa and Jean, still needing—all their doubling; all those clumsy seams he and Quentin had put in the dark between themselves and Matthew and Walter and Beth: ripped out, when they'd seen what a mess they'd made of things, and then restitched, by new light. All these ways they'd knitted themselves together to give Eliot something to hold onto, as he fought his way through the storm: that thick, painful line sprung out of his chest to tether him to—to all of them: to Quentin and Margo and his mother, and _her_ mother, and his aunts; to Ted when he'd still lived in Jersey and to Alice entire realms of existence away; to Penny, giving Eliot a boozy shovel talk, Week 4 of his and Quentin's first semester, first year; or to Amahle, even, Eliot thinks: getting glitter in Eliot's eyelashes and inviting him to Christmas; or to Kady and Tequila (_because_, Kady had explained, _she makes you forget all your problems_: while the puppy had been frantically licking Quentin's face); or to Julia and her bossy knows-best-for everyone tenderness, holding Quentin's hand _and_ Eliot's, in that Lyft; or—or even, Eliot thinks, in the end, to Lu: who had looked at him, Year Two, and seen—something else. Something that now, in the present, she was just beginning to show him how to see. That. _That's_ what matters, isn't it? The intangible substance of the living breathing ever-shifting rope between him, and them: this ribbon, that they sit down with Eliot to weave.

"I mean," Eliot corrects, voice thick, "they're yours, if you want them."

And across the table, Rachel lifts up her chin.

"Always," she says, low. "_Always_, Eliot"; and Eliot—

—swallows. 

"Well, then," Esther says, voice firm, as though—as though that's it, really; as though—saying it is enough; and Eliot—laughs, a little, because—

—because maybe it is enough, isn't it?

To start.

"Well, then," he agrees, as he settles his arm more tightly around Quentin's warm shoulders. Quentin rubs his cheek on Eliot's sleeve, and Eliot breathes, and blinks, and breathes: holding him close and looking at Margo, just-diving into telling Lisa (listening breathless; rapt) about—oh, God, that incredibly offensive asshole on her flight in from LaGuardia, thankfully _without_ the collaborative roleplay this time, at least; watching Jean finish off the last of her cocktail and then stand to go get another bottle of Barefoot, which at least hopefully (three rounds in) won't really taste much like anything; as Esther pats and pats and pats at the back of Eliot's hand. When he looks back to her, she gives him a small, pleased little smile; her other hand resting, gentle, on top of Rachel's upturned outstretched hand: her body in between them, like—like a bridge. Like—like the bridge that _Quentin_ has been, and Margo: when they needed it; as maybe—maybe Eliot might be, in ways, a bridge for the two of them. And so. And so Eliot looks, at last, at Rachel, through the candlelight: at Rachel, as she is looking back at him: her face somehow both familiar, and—and _new_, he is thinking: that trembling luminous quaver beneath his ribs. She is so lovely, and so familiar, and still, somehow, so entirely brand-new—

—a person who wants to know me, Eliot thinks, that's all: that little spark inside of him, flaring bright. 

Suffused. That's the word. Rachel looking at him looks—just like Eliot feels, doesn't she? Suffused. Soaked through. Sparks to candles; candles to a hearth: everywhere in and around and coming to them and from them, as though they are both—filled up with it. Suffused; supersaturated. 

Overflowing with light.

[ ](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/family_tree)

[Someone else's work, living alongside our own.](https://www.hogarenxs.com/redirects/posts/art/family_tree)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings** (hover to reveal): internalized ableism (regarding both mental illness and learning disability [dyslexia]); internalized homophobia; internalized kink/sexual shame; references to drug and alcohol use; references to both the abuse of a child by a parent and the abuse of an adult by their spouse; references to homophobia, including religious homophobia; references to homophobic violence; references to chronic mental illness (including both hospitalizations and, yes, anxieties about self-harm and/or suicide); references to serious and/or terminal physical illness; religious alienation; a significant amount of content related to the death of a parent and all that the possible ways that a person can feel, about the death of a parent; and references to/anxieties about romantic/marital infidelity. There's also a very brief reference to—uh, an animal _not_ being harmed? I guess the warning is implicitly for a reference to the possibility of animal harm, then. _Just to be clear_: for those warnings which implicitly involve two or more people, **the warning does not apply to any tagged _relationship(s)_**—but it definitely _does_ apply to the people _in_ tagged relationships, vis-a-vis their relationships to other people. In other words: Eliot wasn't abused by his mom/Eliot's mom isn't ill or dying/Eliot didn't cheat on or abuse Quentin/Quentin didn't cheat on or abuse Eliot; but Eliot and his mom are still, in part, grappling with abuse, and Quentin is still, in part, grappling with infidelity; and basically everyone is grappling with the idea of parental death.
> 
> ...boy. This story is actually _way_ more upbeat than all of that ^^ makes it sound. But the warnings are definitely merited, and definitely important, so—do with that what you will. [[back to the beginning of the story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899113/)]

**Author's Note:**

> Dear friends—thank you. We hope that this was as cathartic for you to read as it was for us to create; and wish you the happiest of holidays, and all the hope and love and light you could ask for, in the new year.
> 
> ❤️ ❤️ **greywash** and **yourtinseltinkerbell**


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